Vehicle object detection system and method

ABSTRACT

System for obtaining information about an object in the vehicle including one or more resonators or reflectors arranged in association with the object, each resonator emitting an energy signal upon receipt of a signal at an excitation frequency, a transmitter device for transmitting signals at least at the excitation frequency of each resonator, an energy signal detector for detecting the energy signal emitted by each resonator upon receipt of the signal at the excitation frequency, and a processor coupled to the detector for obtaining information about the object upon analysis of the energy signal detected by the detector. The information obtained about the object may be a distance between each resonator and the detector, which positional information is useful for controlling components in the vehicle such as the occupant restraint or protection device. If the object is a seat, the information obtained about the seat may be an indication of the position of the seat, the position of the back cushion of the seat, the position of the bottom cushion of the seat, the angular orientation of the seat, and other seat parameters. The resonator(s) may be arranged within the object and may be a SAW device, antenna and/or RFID tag. When several resonators are used, each may be designed to emit an energy signal upon receipt of a signal at a different excitation frequency. The resonators may be tuned resonators including an acoustic cavity or a vibrating mechanical element.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 09/891,432, filed Jun. 26, 2001, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,513,833which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/838,920 filed Apr. 20, 2001, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/563,556 filed May 3, 2000, now U.S. Pat.No. 6,474,683 which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 09/437,535 filed Nov. 10, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,712,387,which in turn is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 09/047,703 filed Mar. 25, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,039,139, whichin turn is:

1) a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/640,068filed Apr. 30, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,782, which in turn is acontinuation application of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/239,978filed May 9, 1994, now abandoned, which is a continuation-in-part ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/040,978 filed Mar. 31, 1993, nowabandoned, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 07/878,571 filed May 5, 1992, now abandoned; and

2) a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/905,876filed Aug. 4, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,848,802, which is a continuationof U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/505,036 filed Jul. 21, 1995, nowU.S. Pat. No. 5,653,462, which is a continuation of the Ser. No.08/040,978 application which is a continuation-in-part of the Ser. No.07/878,571 application.

This application is also a continuation-in-part of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 09/639,299 filed Aug. 15, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No.6,422,595 which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.08/905,877 filed Aug. 4, 1997, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,186,537, which is acontinuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/505,036 filed Jul.25, 1995, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,462, which is a continuation of theSer. No. 08/040,978 application which is a continuation-in-part of theSer. No. 07/878,571 application.

This application is also a continuation-in-part of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 09/543,678 filed Apr. 7, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No.6,412,813 which in turn is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 09/047,704 filed Mar. 25, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No.6,116,639, which is: 1) a continuation-in-part of the Ser. No.08/640,068 application which is a continuation application of the Ser.No. 08/239,978 application; and 2) a continuation-in-part of the Ser.No. 08/905,876 application, which is a continuation of the Ser. No.08/505,036 application, which is a continuation of the Ser. No.08/040,978 application which is a continuation-in-part of the Ser. No.07/878,571 application.

This application is also related to (in view of common subject matter),but does not claim priority from, U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/084,641 filed May 26, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,901,978, U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 09/737,138 filed Dec. 14, 2000, now U.S. Pat. No.6,325,414, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/409,625 filed Oct. 1,1999, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/058,706 filed Jan. 28, 2002and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/114,533 filed Apr. 2, 2002.

All of the foregoing patent applications and patents are incorporated byreference herein in their entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to methods and arrangements forobtaining information about an occupying item in a vehicle or a part inthe vehicle using a wave-detecting device which receives waves emanatingfrom or generated by a reflector or resonator. The reflector orresonator is arranged in association with the vehicle or occupying itemso that the waves emanating therefrom or generated thereby can beprocessed to provide information about the occupying item, such as itspresence, position, or information about the vehicle, such as theposition of the seat when the resonator is placed in the seat.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. History and General Statement of the Problem

In 1984, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) ofthe U.S. Department of Transportation issued a requirement for frontalcrash protection of automobile occupants. This regulation mandated“passive occupant restraints” for all passenger cars by 1992. A morerecent regulation required both driver and passenger side airbags on allpassenger cars and light trucks by 1998. In addition, the demand forairbags is constantly accelerating in both Europe and Japan (˜36 millionvehicles) and all vehicles produced in these areas and eventuallyworldwide (˜50 million vehicles) will likely be equipped with airbags asstandard equipment, if they do not include them already.

Whereas thousands of lives have been saved by airbags, significantimprovements can be made. As discussed in detail in U.S. Pat. No.5,653,462 referenced above, for a variety of reasons, vehicle occupantscan be or get too close to the airbag before it deploys and can beseriously injured or killed upon deployment of the airbag.

Also, a child in a rear facing child seat, which is placed on the rightfront passenger seat, is in danger of being seriously injured if thepassenger airbag deploys. This has now become an industry-wide concernand the U.S. automobile industry is continually searching for an easy,economical solution, which will prevent the deployment of the passengerside airbag if a rear facing child seat is present. An improvement onthe invention disclosed in the above-referenced patent, as will bedisclosed in greater detail below, includes more sophisticated means toidentify objects within the passenger compartment and will solve thisproblem.

Initially, these systems will solve the out-of-position occupant and therear facing child seat problems related to current airbag systems andprevent unneeded deployments when a seat is unoccupied. Airbags are nowunder development to protect rear seat occupants in vehicle crashes. Asystem is therefore needed to detect the presence of occupants,position, (to determine if they are out-of-position), and type(toidentify the presence of a rear facing child seat) in the rear seat.Current and future automobiles may have eight or more airbags asprotection is sought for rear seat occupants and from side impacts. Inaddition to eliminating the disturbance of unnecessary airbagdeployments, the cost of replacing these airbags will be excessive ifthey all deploy in an accident. The improvements described belowminimize this cost by not deploying an airbag for a seat, which is notoccupied by a human being. An occupying item of a seat may be a livingoccupant such as a human being or dog, another living organism such as aplant, or an inanimate object such as a box or bag of groceries.

Side impact airbag systems began appearing on 1995 vehicles. The dangerof deployment induced injuries will exist for side impact airbags asthey now do for frontal impact airbags. A child with his head againstthe airbag is such an example. The system of this invention willminimize such injuries.

2. General Solution to the Problem and Resulting Benefits

A device to monitor the vehicle interior and identify its contents isneeded to solve these and many other related problems. For example, oncea Vehicle Interior Identification and Monitoring System (VIMS) foridentifying and monitoring the contents of a vehicle is in place, manyother products become possible including the following:

Inflators and control systems now exist which will adjust the amount ofgas flowing into and/or out of the airbag to account for the size andposition of the occupant and for the severity of the accident. Thevehicle identification and monitoring system of this invention willcontrol such systems based on the presence, size and position of vehicleoccupants or the presence, position and orientation of an occupied childseat.

Vehicles can be provided with a standard cellular phone or othertelematics communication system as well as the Global Positioning System(GPS), an automobile navigation or location system with an optionalconnection to a manned assistance facility, which is now available onseveral vehicle models. In the event of an accident, the phone mayautomatically call 911, or contact OnStar™ or similar service foremergency assistance and report the position of the vehicle. If thevehicle also has a system as described below for monitoring each seatlocation, the number and perhaps the condition of the occupants couldalso be reported and/or photographs of the vehicle interior before,during and/or after the accident can be transmitted. In that way, theemergency service (EMS) would know what equipment and how manyambulances to send to the accident site and prioritize the accident whenseveral accidents occur in the same time frame. Moreover, acommunication channel can be opened between the vehicle and a monitoringfacility/emergency response facility or personnel to enable directionsto be provided to the injured occupant(s) of the vehicle to assist inany necessary first aid prior to arrival of the emergency assistancepersonnel.

Once an occupant sensor is operational, the vehicle entertainment systemcan be improved if the number, size and location of occupants and otherobjects were known. However, it is not believed that, prior to theinstant invention, engineers have thought to determine the number, sizeand/or location of the occupants and use such determination incombination with the entertainment system. Indeed, this information canbe provided by the vehicle interior identification and monitoring systemof this invention to thereby improve a vehicle's entertainment system.Once one considers monitoring the space in the passenger compartment analternate method of characterizing the sonic environment comes to mindwhich is to send and receive a test sound to see what frequencies arereflected, absorbed or excite resonances and then adjust the spectraloutput of the entertainment system accordingly.

As the VIMS improves to where such things as the exact location of theoccupants ears and eyes can be determined, even more significantimprovements to the entertainment system become possible through the useof noise canceling sound, and the rear view mirrors can be automaticallyadjusted for the driver's eye location.

Another example involves the monitoring of the driver's behavior overtime that can be used to warn a driver if he or she is falling asleep,or to stop the vehicle if the driver loses the capacity to control it.

Similarly to the entertainment system, the heating, ventilation and airconditioning system (HVAC) can be improved if the number, attributes andlocation of vehicle occupants were known. This can be used to provide aclimate control system tailored to each occupant, for example, or thesystem can be turned off for certain seat locations if there are nooccupants present at those locations.

In some cases, the position of a particular part of the occupant is ofinterest such as: (a) his hand or arm and whether it is in the path of aclosing window so that the motion of the window needs to be stopped; (b)the position of the shoulder so that the scat belt anchorage point canbe adjusted for the best protection of the occupant; or, (c) theposition of the rear of the occupants head so that the headrest can beadjusted to minimize whiplash injuries in rear impacts.

Additionally, using an advanced VIMS, as explained below, the positionof the driver's eyes can be accurately determined and portions of thewindshield, or of a special visor, can be selectively darkened toeliminate the glare from the sun or oncoming vehicle headlights. Thissystem can use electro-chromic glass, a liquid crystal device, XeroxGyricon, Research Frontiers SPD, semiconducting and metallic (organic)polymer displays, spatial light monitors, electronic “Venetian blinds”,electronic polarizers or other appropriate technology, and, in somecases, detectors to detect the direction of the offending light source.In addition to eliminating the glare, the standard sun visor can nowalso be eliminated Alternately, the glare filter can be placed inanother device such as a transparent sun visor that is placed betweenthe driver's eyes and the windshield.

3. Pattern Recognition

The present invention adds more sophisticated pattern recognitioncapabilities such as fuzzy logic systems, neural networks, modularneural network systems or other pattern recognition computer basedalgorithms to the occupant position measurement system disclosed in theabove referenced patents and/or patent applications and greatly extendsthe areas of application of this technology. An example of such apattern recognition system using neural networks using sonar isdiscussed in two papers by Gorman, R. P. and Sejnowski, T. J. “Analysisof Hidden Units in a Layered Network Trained to Classify Sonar Targets”,Neural Networks, Vol. 1. pp. 75-89, 1988, and “Learned Classification ofSonar Targets Using a Massively Parallel Network”, IEEE Transactions onAcoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, Vol. 36, No. 7, July 1988.

4. Definitions

Some embodiments of the invention are described below and unlessspecifically noted, it is the applicants' intention that the words andphrases in the specification and claims be given the ordinary andaccustomed meaning to those of ordinary skill in the applicable art(s).If the applicant intends any other meaning, he will specifically statehe is applying a special meaning to a word or phrase.

Likewise, applicants' use of the word “function” here is not intended toindicate that the applicants seek to invoke the special provisions of 35U.S.C. §112, sixth paragraph, to define their invention. To thecontrary, if applicants wish to invoke the provisions of 35 U.S.C.§112,sixth paragraph, to define their invention, they will specifically setforth in the claims the phrases “means for” or “step for” and afunction, without also reciting in that phrase any structure, materialor act in support of the function. Moreover, even if applicants invokethe provisions of 35 U.S.C. §112, sixth paragraph, to define theirinvention, it is the applicants' intention that their inventions not belimited to the specific structure, material or acts that are describedin the preferred embodiments herein. Rather, if applicants claim theirinventions by specifically invoking the provisions of 35 U.S.C. §112,sixth paragraph, it is nonetheless their intention to cover and includeany and all structure, materials or acts that perform the claimedfunction, along with any and all known or later developed equivalentstructures, materials or acts for performing the claimed function.

“Pattern recognition” as used herein will generally mean any systemwhich processes a signal that is generated by an object, or is modifiedby interacting with an object, in order to determine which one of a setof classes that the object belongs to. Such a system might determineonly that the object is or is not a member of one specified class, or itmight attempt to assign the object to one of a larger set of specifiedclasses, or find that it is not a member of any of the classes in theset. The signals processed are generally electrical signals coming fromtransducers which are sensitive to either acoustic or electromagneticradiation and if electromagnetic, they can be either visible light,infrared, ultraviolet, radar or other part of the electromagneticspectrum, or electric or magnetic fields.

“To identify” as used herein will generally mean to determine that theobject belongs to a particular set or class. The class may be onecontaining all rear facing child seats, one containing all humanoccupants, all human occupants not sitting in a rear facing child seat,or all humans in a certain height or weight range, all humans that arein a position where they can be protected by an airbag, all humans thatare in a position where they are at risk to be seriously injured by anairbag depending on the purpose of the system. In the case where aparticular person is to be recognized, the set or class will containonly a single element, the person to be recognized.

5. Some Examples of the Invention

In a passive infrared system a detector receives infrared radiation froman object in its field of view, in this ease the vehicle occupant, anddetermines the temperature of the occupant based on the infraredradiation. The VIMS can then respond to the temperature of the occupant,which can either be a child in a rear facing child seat or a normallyseated occupant, to control some other system. This technology canprovide input data to a pattern recognition system but it haslimitations related to temperature. The sensing of the child could posea problem if the child is covered with blankets. It also might not bepossible to differentiate between a rear facing child seat and a forwardfacing child seat In all cases, the technology will fail to detect theoccupant if the ambient temperature reaches body temperature as it doesin hot climates. Nevertheless, for use in the control of the vehicleclimate, for example, a passive infrared system that permits an accuratemeasurement of each occupant's temperature is useful.

In a laser optical system an infrared laser beam is used to momentarilyilluminate an object, occupant or child seat in the manner as described,and illustrated in FIG. 8, of U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,462 cross-referencedabove In some cases, a charge-coupled device (a type of TV camera alsoreferred to as a CCD array) or a CMOS device is used to receive thereflected light. In other cases when a-scanning laser is used a pin oravalanche diode or other photo detector can be used. The laser caneither be used in a scanning mode, or, through the use of a lens, a coneof light, swept line of light, or a pattern or structured light can becreated which covers a large portion of the object. Additionally, one ormore LEDs can be used as a light source. Also triangulation can be usedin conjunction with an offset scanning laser to determine the range ofthe illuminated spot from the light detector. Various focusing systemsalso can have applicability in some implementations to measure thedistance to an occupant. In most cases, a pattern recognition system, asdefined above, is used to identify and classify, and can be used tolocate, the illuminated object and its constituent parts. The opticalsystems generally provide the most information about the object and at arapid data rate. Its main drawback is cost which is considerably abovethat of ultrasonic or passive infrared systems. As the cost of lasersand imagers comes down in the future, this system will become morecompetitive. Depending on the implementation of the system, there may besome concern for the safety of the occupant if a laser light can enterthe occupant's eyes. This is minimized if the laser operates in theinfrared spectrum particularly at the “eye-safe” frequencies.

Radar systems have similar properties to the laser system discussedabove. The wavelength of a particular radar system can limit the abilityof the pattern recognition system to detect object features smaller thana certain size. Also, depending on the radar frequency, the detectingmethod can be based on the modification of the waves in different wayssuch as reflection, absorption, scattering or transmission. Once again,however, there is some concern about the health effects of radar onchildren and other occupants. This concern is expressed in variousreports available from the United States Food and Drug AdministrationDivision of Devices.

Naturally, electromagnetic waves from other parts of the electromagneticspectrum can also be used such as, for example, those used with what aresometimes referred to as capacitive or electric field sensors, forexample as described in U.S. patents by Kithil et al. U.S. Pat. Nos.5,366,241, 5,602,734, 5,691,693, 5,802,479, 5,844,486 and 6,014,602; ByJinno et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,948,031; and SAE technical papers 982292and 971051 which are incorporated herein by reference. Additionally, asdiscussed in more detail below, the sensing of the change in thecharacteristics of the near field that surrounds an antenna is aneffective and economical method of determining the presence of water inthe vicinity of the antenna and thus a measure of occupant presence. Theuse of electric field and capacitance sensors and their equivalence tothe occupant sensors described herein requires a special discussion.

6. Electric Field, Capacitance and Wave Sensors

Electric field sensors and wave sensors are essentially the same fromthe point of view of sensing the presence of an occupant in a vehicle.In both cases, a time varying electric field is disturbed or modified bythe presence of the occupant. At high frequencies in the visual,infrared and high frequency radio wave region, the sensor is based onits capability to sense change of wave characteristics of theelectromagnetic field, such as amplitude, phase or frequency. As thefrequency drops, other characteristics of the field are measured. Atstill lower frequencies, the occupant's dielectric properties modifyparameters of the reactive electric field in the occupied spacebetween/near the plates of a capacitor. In this latter case, the sensorsenses the change in charge distribution on the capacitor plates bymeasuring, for example, the current wave magnitude or phase in theelectric circuit that drives the capacitor. These measured parametersare directly connected with parameters of the displacement current inthe occupied space. In all cases, the presence of the occupant reflects,absorbs or modifies the waves or variations in the electric field in thespace occupied by the occupant. Thus for the purposes of this invention,capacitance, electric field or electromagnetic wave sensors areequivalent and although they are all technically “field” sensors theywill be considered as “wave” sensors herein. What follows is adiscussion comparing the similarities and differences between two typesof field or wave sensors, electromagnetic wave sensors and capacitivesensors as exemplified by Kithil in U.S. Pat. No. 5,602,734.

An electromagnetic field disturbed or emitted by a passenger in the caseof an electromagnetic wave sensor, for example, and the electric fieldsensor of Kithil, for example, are in many ways similar and equivalentfor the purposes of this invention. The electromagnetic wave sensor isan actual electromagnetic wave sensor by definition because they senseparameters of a wave, which is a coupled pair of continuously changingelectric and magnetic fields. The electric field here is not a static,potential one. It is essentially a dynamic, rotational electric fieldcoupled with a changing magnetic one, that is, an electromagnetic wave.It cannot be produced by a steady distribution of electric charges. Itis initially produced by moving electric charges in a transmitter, evenif this transmitter is a passenger body for the case of a passiveinfrared sensor.

In the Kithil sensor, a static electric field is declared as an initialmaterial agent coupling a passenger and a sensor (see Column 5, lines5-7): “The proximity sensor 12 each function by creating anelectrostatic field between oscillator input loop 54 and detector outputloop 56, which is affected by presence of a person near by, as a resultof capacitive coupling, . . . ”). It is a potential, non-rotationalelectric field. It is not necessarily coupled with any magnetic field.It is the electric field of a capacitor. It can be produced with asteady distribution of electric charges. Thus, it is not anelectromagnetic wave by definition but if the sensor is driven by avarying current, then it produces a quasistatic electric field in thespace between/near the plates of the capacitor.

Kithil declares that he uses a static electric field in his capacitancesensor. Thus, from the consideration above, one can conclude thatKithil's sensor cannot be treated as a wave sensor because there are noactual electromagnetic waves but only a static electric field of thecapacitor in the sensor system. However, this is not believed to be thecase. The Kithil system could not operate with a true static electricfield because a steady system does not carry any information. Therefore,Kithil is forced to use an oscillator, causing an alternate current inthe capacitor and a reactive quasistatic electric field in the spacebetween the capacitor plates, and a detector to reveal an informativechange of the sensor capacitance caused by the presence of an occupant(see FIG. 7 and its description). In this case, the system becomes a“wave sensor” in the sense that it starts generating actual time-varyingelectric field that certainly originates electromagnetic waves accordingto the definition above. That is, Kithil's sensor can be treated as awave sensor regardless of the shape of the electric field that itcreates, a beam or a spread shape.

As follows from the Kithil patent, the capacitor sensor is likely aparametric system where the capacitance of the sensor is controlled byinfluence of the passenger body. This influence is transferred by meansof the near electromagnetic field (i.e., the wave-like process) couplingthe capacitor electrodes and the body. It is important to note that thesame influence takes place with a real static electric field also, thatis in absence of any wave phenomenon This would be a situation if therewere no oscillator in Kithil's system. However, such a system is notworkable and thus Kithil reverts to a dynamic system using time-varyingelectric fields.

Thus, although Kithil declares the coupling is due to a static electricfield, such a situation is not realized in his system because analternating electromagnetic field (“quasi-wave”) exists in the systemdue to the oscillator. Thus, his sensor is actually a wave sensor, thatis, it is sensitive to a change of a wave field in the vehiclecompartment. This change is measured by measuring the change of itscapacitance. The capacitance of the sensor system is determined by theconfiguration of its electrodes, one of which is a human body, that is,the passenger inside of and the part which controls the electrodeconfiguration and hence a sensor parameter, the capacitance.

The physics definition of “wave” from Webster's Encyclopedic UnabridgedDictionary is: “11. Physics. A progressive disturbance propagated frompoint to point in a medium or space without progress or advance of thepoints themselves, . . . ”. In a capacitor, the time that it takes forthe disturbance (a change in voltage) to propagate through space, thedielectric and to the opposite plate is generally small and neglectedbut it is not zero. As the frequency driving the capacitor increases andthe distance separating the plates increases, this transmission time asa percentage of the period of oscillation can become significant.Nevertheless, an observer between the plates will see the rise and fallof the electric field much like a person standing in the water of anocean. The presence of a dielectric body between the plates causes thewaves to get bigger as more electrons flow to and from the plates of thecapacitor. Thus, an occupant affects the magnitude of these waves whichis sensed by the capacitor circuit. Thus, the electromagnetic field is amaterial agent that carries information about a passenger's position inboth Kithil's and a beam-type electromagnetic wave sensor.

The following definitions are applicable and are from the EncyclopediaBritannica:

“Electromagnetic Field”

“A property of space caused by the motion of an electric charge. Astationary charge will produce only an electric field in the surroundingspace. If the charge is moving, a magnetic field is also produced. Anelectric field can be produced also by a changing magnetic field. Themutual interaction of electric and magnetic fields produces anelectromagnetic field, which is considered as having its own existencein space apart from the charges or currents (a stream of moving charges)with which it may be related . . . ” (Copyright 1994-1998 EncyclopediaBritannica)

“Displacement Current”

“. . . in electromagnetism, a phenomenon analogous to an ordinaryelectric current, posited to explain magnetic fields that are producedby changing electric fields. Ordinary electric currents, calledconduction currents, whether steady or varying, produce an accompanyingmagnetic field in the vicinity of the current. [ . . . ]

“As electric charges do not flow through the insulation from one plateof a capacitor to the other, there is no conduction current; instead, adisplacement current is said to be present to account for the continuityof the magnetic effects. In fact, the calculated size of thedisplacement current between the plates of a capacitor being charged anddischarged in an alternating-current circuit is equal to the size of theconduction current in the wires leading to and from the capacitor.Displacement currents play a central role in the propagation ofelectromagnetic radiation, such as light and radio waves, through emptyspace. A traveling, varying magnetic field is everywhere associated witha periodically changing electric field that may be conceived in terms ofa displacement current. Maxwell's insight on displacement current,therefore, made it possible to understand electromagnetic waves as beingpropagated through space completely detached from electric currents inconductors.” Copyright 1994-1998 Encyclopedia Britannica

“Electromagnetic Radiation”

“. . . energy that is propagated through free space or through amaterial medium in the form of electromagnetic waves, such as radiowaves, visible light, and gamma rays. The term also refers to theemission and transmission of such radiant energy. [ . . . ]

“It has been established that time-varying electric fields can inducemagnetic fields and that time-varying magnetic fields can in like mannerinduce electric fields. Because such electric and magnetic fieldsgenerate each other, they occur jointly, and together they propagate aselectromagnetic waves. An electromagnetic wave is a transverse wave inthat the electric field and the magnetic field at any point and time inthe wave are perpendicular to each other as well as to the direction ofpropagation. [ . . . ]

“Electromagnetic radiation has properties in common with other forms ofwaves such as reflection, refraction, diffraction, and interference. [ .. . ]” Copyright 1994-1998 Encyclopedia Britannica

The main part of the Kithil “circuit means” is an oscillator, which isas necessary in the system as the capacitor itself to make thecapacitive coupling effect be detectable. An oscillator by naturecreates a time varying electric field in a capacitor or waves. Thesystem can operate as a sensor only if an alternating current flowsthrough the sensor capacitor, which, in fact, is a detector from whichan informative signal is acquired. Then this current (or, more exactly,integral of the current over time—charge) is measured and the result isa measure of the sensor capacitance value. The latter in turn depends onthe passenger presence that affects the magnitude of the waves thattravel between the plates of the capacitor making the Kithil sensor awave sensor by the definition herein.

An additional relevant definition is:

“Capacitive Coupling”

The transfer of energy from one circuit to another by means of themutual capacitance between the circuits. (188) The coupling may bedeliberate or inadvertent. Capacitive coupling favors transfer of thehigher frequency components of a signal, whereas inductive couplingfavors lower frequency components, and conductive coupling favorsneither hugher nor lower frequency components.”http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/fs-1037/dir-006/0842.htm

Another similarity between one embodiment of the sensor of thisinvention and the Kithil sensor is the use of a voltage-controlledoscillator (VCO).

7. Ultrasonic Occupant Sensors

The ultrasonic system is the least expensive and potentially providesless information than the optical or some radar systems due to thedelays resulting from the speed of sound and due to the wave lengthwhich is considerably longer than the optical (including infrared)systems. The longer wavelength limits the detail, which can be seen bythe system. In spite of these limitations, as shown below, ultrasonicscan provide sufficient timely information to permit the position andvelocity of an occupant to be accurately known and, when used with anappropriate pattern recognition system, it is capable of positivelydetermining the presence of a rear facing child seat. One patternrecognition system that has been used to identify a rear facing childseat is a neural networks and is similar to that described in theabove-referenced papers by Gorman et al.

8. Occupant Location Based on Focusing

A focusing system, such as used on some camera systems, can be used todetermine the initial position of an occupant but, in most cases, it istoo slow to monitor his position during a crash. This is a result of themechanical motions required to operate the lens focusing system,however, methods do exist that do not require mechanical motions. Byitself it cannot determine the presence of a rear facing child seat orof an occupant but when used with a charge-coupled or CMSO device plussome infrared illumination for vision at night, and an appropriatepattern recognition system, this becomes possible. Similarly, the use ofthree dimensional cameras based on modulated waves or range-gated pulsedlight methods combined with pattern recognition systems are now possiblebased on the teachings of the inventions disclosed herein and thecommonly assigned patents and patent applications referenced above.

9. Information About an Occupying Item

As discussed above, it is desirable to obtain information about anoccupying item in a vehicle in order to control a component in thevehicle based on the characteristics of the occupying item. For example,if it were known that the occupying item is inanimate, an airbagdeployment system would generally be controlled to suppress deploymentof any airbags designed to protect passengers seated at the location ofthe inanimate object.

When the occupying item is human, in some instances the informationabout the occupying item can be the occupant's position, size andweight. Each of these properties can have an effect on the controlcriteria of the component. One system for determining a deployment forceof an air bag system in described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,199,904 (Dosdall).This system provides a reflective surface in the vehicle seat thatreflects microwaves transmitted from a microwave emitter. The position,size and weight of a human occupant are said to be determined bycalibrating the microwaves detected by a detector after the microwaveshave been reflected from the reflective surface and pass through theoccupant.

10. Child Seat Detection Prior Art

With respect to prior art related to the detection of child restrainingseats, U.S. Pat. No. 5,605,348 (Blackburn et al.) describes method andapparatus for sensing a rearward facing child restraining scat in whicha child restraining seat identification tag is secured to the childrestraining seat and an antenna coil is energized to transmit an EMFfield. The tag is made of an amorphous material that radiates a returnEMF signal that is received by the antenna coil. The system determineswhether a rear-facing child seat is present based on the presence of thereturn EMF signal, which is received only if the tag mounted to bottomfront of the child seat is within a certain distance from the antennacoil mounted in the back portion of the seat. Drawbacks of the system ofBlackburn et al. are that a special tag must be incorporated into thechild seat in order to detect the same, the system cannot differentiatebetween other similarly tagged objects and the system relies on theproper placement of the tag on the child seat. In other words, if thetag were to be improperly placed on the child seat, then the systemwould not accurately determine the presence and orientation of the same.Also, the system of Blackburn et al. does not generate, e g., via theantenna coil, a signal based on the contents of the seat which isdifferent depending on the contents of the seat, i.e., the signal for anadult occupant is different from the signal for a forward-facing childseat which is different from the signal for a rear-facing child seat,etc., and analyze the same in order to determine whether the contents ofthe seat include a child seat in a rear-facing position. Rather, the EMFfield generated by the tag is the same signal, and only the power outputis varied. Thus, either no signal (no EMF field) will be generatedrepresenting the absence of a rear-facing child seat or a signal (an EMFfield) will be generated representing the presence of a rear-facingchild seat.

11. Summary

From the above discussion, it can be seen that the addition ofsophisticated pattern recognition means to any of the illuminationand/or reception technologies for use in a motor vehicle permits thedevelopment of a host of new products, systems or capabilitiesheretofore not available and as described in more detail below.

OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Briefly, the claimed inventions are methods and arrangements forobtaining information about an object in a vehicle. This determinationis used in various methods and arrangements for, for example,controlling occupant protection devices in the event of a vehicle crash.

The determination can also be used in various methods and arrangementsfor, controlling heating and air-conditioning systems to optimize thecomfort for any occupants, controlling an entertainment system asdesired by the occupants, controlling a glare prevention device for theoccupants, preventing accidents by a driver who is unable to safelydrive the vehicle and enabling an effective and optimal response in theevent of a crash (either oral directions to be communicated to theoccupants or the dispatch of personnel to aid the occupants) as well asmany others. Thus, one objective of the invention is to obtaininformation about occupancy of a vehicle before, during and/or after acrash and convey this information to remotely situated assistancepersonnel to optimize their response to a crash involving the vehicleand/or enable proper assistance to be rendered to the occupants afterthe crash.

Principle objects and advantages of the claimed invention are:

1. To obtain information about an object in a vehicle using resonatorsor reflectors arranged in association with the object, such as theposition of the object and the orientation of the object.

2. To provide a system designed to determine the orientation of a childseat using resonators or reflectors arranged in connection with thechild seat.

3. To provide a system designed to determine whether a seatbelt is inuse using resonators and reflectors, for possible use in the control ofa safety device such as an airbag.

4. To provide a system designed to determine the position of anoccupying item of a vehicle using resonators or reflectors, for possibleuse in the control of a safety device such as an airbag.

5. To provide a system designed to determine the position of a seatusing resonators or reflectors, for possible use in the control of avehicular component or system which would be affected by different seatpositions.

In order to achieve these objects, a vehicle including a system forobtaining information about an object in the vehicle, comprises at leastone resonator or reflector arranged in association with the object, eachresonator emitting an energy signal upon receipt of a signal at anexcitation frequency, a transmitter device for transmitting signals atleast at the excitation frequency of each resonator, an energy signaldetector for detecting the energy signal emitted by each resonator uponreceipt of the signal at the excitation frequency, and a processorcoupled to the detector for obtaining information about the object uponanalysis of the energy signal detected by the detector.

The information obtained about the object may be a distance between eachresonator and the detector, which positional information is useful forcontrolling components in the vehicle such as the occupant restraint orprotection device.

If the object is a seat, the information obtained about the seat may bean indication of the position of the seat, the position of the backcushion of the seat, the position of the bottom cushion of the seat, theangular orientation of the seat, and other seat parameters.

The resonator(s) may be arranged within the object and may be a SAWdevice, antenna and/or RFID tag. When several resonators are used, eachmay be designed to emit an energy signal upon receipt of a signal at adifferent excitation frequency. The resonators may be tuned resonatorsincluding an acoustic cavity or a vibrating mechanical element.

If the object is a seatbelt, the information obtained about the seatbeltmay be an indication of whether the seatbelt is in use and/or theposition of the seatbelt.

If the object is a child seat, the information obtained about the childseat may be whether, the child seat is present and whether the childseat is rear-facing, front-facing, etc. (i.e., its orientation).

If the object is a window of the vehicle, the information obtained aboutthe window may be an indication of whether the window is open or closed,or the state of openness.

If the object is a door, a resonator may be arranged in a surface facingthe door such that closure of the door prevents emission of the energysignal from the resonator, whereby the information obtained about thedoor is an indication of whether the door is open or closed.

In another embodiment, the vehicle comprises at least one reflectorarranged in association with the object and arranged to reflect anenergy signal, a transmitter for transmitting energy signals in adirection of each of reflector, an energy signal detector for detectingenergy signals reflected by the reflector(s), and a processor coupled tothe detector for obtaining information about the object upon analysis ofthe energy signal detected by the detector. The reflector may be aparabolic-shaped reflector, a corner cube reflector, a cube arrayreflector, an antenna reflector and other types of reflector orreflective devices. The transmitter may be an infrared laser system inwhich case, the reflector comprises an optical mirror.

The information obtained about the object may be a distance between eachreflector and the detector, which positional information is useful forcontrolling components in the vehicle such as the occupant restraint orprotection device. If the object is a seat, the information obtainedabout the seat may be an indication of the position of the scat, theposition of the back cushion of the seat, the position of the bottomcushion of the seat, the angular orientation of the seat, and other seatparameters. If the object is a seatbelt, the information obtained aboutthe seatbelt may be an indication of whether the seatbelt is in useand/or the position of the seatbelt. If the object is a child seat, theinformation obtained about the child seat may be whether the child seatis present and whether the child scat is rear-facing, front-facing, etc.If the object is a window of the vehicle, the information obtained aboutthe window may be an indication of whether the window is open or closed,or the state of openness. If the object is a door, a reflector may bearranged in a surface facing the door such that closure of the doorprevents reflection of the energy signal from the reflector, whereby theinformation obtained about the door is an indication of whether the dooris open or closed.

Another embodiment of a motor vehicle detection system to achieve someof the above-listed objects comprises at least one transmitter fortransmitting energy signals toward a target in a passenger compartmentof the vehicle, at least one reflector arranged in association with thetarget, and at least one detector for detecting energy signals reflectedby the reflector(s). A processor is optionally coupled to thedetector(s) for obtaining information about the target upon analysis ofthe energy signal detected by the detector(s).

Principle objects and advantages of other disclosed inventions that canbe used in conjunction with the claimed invention are:

6. To recognize the presence of a human on a particular seat of a motorvehicle and to use this information to affect the operation of anothervehicle system such as the entertainment system, airbag system, heatingand air conditioning system, pedal adjustment system, mirror adjustmentsystem, wireless data link system or cellular phone, among others.

7. To recognize the presence of a human on a particular seat of a motorvehicle and then to determine his/her position and to use this positioninformation to affect the operation of another vehicle system.

8. To affect the vehicle entertainment system, e.g., the speakers, basedon a determination of the number, size and/or location of variousoccupants or other objects within the vehicle passenger compartment.

9. To determine the location of the ears of one or more vehicleoccupants and to use that information to control the entertainmentsystem, e.g., the speakers, so as to improve the quality of the soundreaching the occupants' ears through such methods as noise cancelingsound.

10. To recognize the presence of a human on a particular seat of a motorvehicle and then to determine his/her velocity relative to the passengercompartment and to use this velocity information to affect the operationof another vehicle system.

11. To determine the position of a seat in the vehicle using sensorsremote from the seat and to use that information in conjunction with amemory system and appropriate actuators to position the seat to apredetermined location.

12. To determine the position, velocity or size of an occupant in amotor vehicle and to utilize this information to control the rate of gasgeneration, or the amount of gas generated, by an airbag inflator systemor otherwise control the flow of gas into or out of an airbag.

13. To determine the fact that an occupant is not restrained by aseatbelt and therefore to modify the characteristics of the airbagsystem. This determination can be done either by monitoring the positionof the occupant or through the use of a resonating device placed on theshoulder belt portion of the seatbelt.

14. To determine the presence and/or position of rear seated occupantsin the vehicle and to use this information to affect the operation of arear seat protection airbag for frontal, rear or side impacts, orrollovers.

15. To determine the presence and/or position of occupants relative tothe side impact airbag systems and to use this information to affect theoperation of a side impact protection airbag system.

16. To determine the openness of a vehicle window and to use thatinformation to affect another vehicle system.

17. To determine the presence of an occupant's hand or other object inthe path of a closing window and to affect the window closing system.

18. To remotely determine the fact that a vehicle door is not tightlyclosed using an illumination transmitting and receiving system such asone employing electromagnetic or acoustic waves.

19. To determine the position of the shoulder of a vehicle occupant andto use that information to control the seatbelt anchorage point.

20. To determine the position of the rear of an occupant's head and touse that information to control the position of the headrest.

21. To recognize the presence of a rear facing child seat on aparticular seat of a motor vehicle and to use this information to affectthe operation of another vehicle system such as the airbag system

22. To determine the total number of occupants of a vehicle and in theevent of an accident to transmit that information, as well as otherinformation such as the condition of the occupants before, during and/orafter a crash, to a receiver remote from the vehicle, such informationmay include images.

23. To affect the vehicle heating, ventilation and air conditioningsystem based on a determination of the number, size and location ofvarious occupants or other objects within the vehicle passengercompartment.

24. To determine the temperature of an occupant based on infraredradiation coming from that occupant and to use that information tocontrol the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.

25. To provide a vehicle interior monitoring system for determining thelocation of occupants within the vehicle and to include within the samesystem various electronics for controlling an airbag system.

26. To determine the approximate location of the eyes of a driver and touse that information to control the position of the rear view mirrors ofthe vehicle and/or adjust the seat.

27. To monitor the position of the head and/or other parts of thevehicle driver and determine whether the driver is falling asleep orotherwise impaired and likely to lose control of the vehicle and to usethat information to affect another vehicle system.

28. To monitor the position of the eyes or eyelids of the vehicle driverand determine whether the driver is falling asleep or otherwise impairedand likely to lose control of the vehicle, or is unconscious after anaccident, and to use that information to affect another vehicle system.

29. To determine the location of the eyes of a vehicle occupant and/orthe direction of a light source such as the headlights of an oncomingvehicle or the sun and to cause a filter to be placed in such a manneras to reduce the intensity of the light striking the eyes of theoccupant.

30. To determine the location of the eyes of a vehicle occupant and/orthe direction of a light source such as the headlights of a rearapproaching vehicle or the sun and to cause a filter to be placed insuch a manner as to reduce the intensity of the light reflected from therear view mirrors and striking the eyes of the occupant.

31. To recognize a particular driver based on such factors as facialcharacteristics, physical appearance or other attributes and to use thisinformation to control another vehicle system such as the vehicleignition, a security system, seat adjustment, or maximum permittedvehicle velocity, among others.

32. To provide an occupant sensor which determines the presence andhealth state of any occupants in a vehicle and, optionally, to send thisinformation by telematics to one or more remote sites. The presence ofthe occupants may be determined using an animal life or heart beatsensors

33. To provide an occupant sensor which determines whether any occupantsof the vehicle are breathing or breathing with difficulty by analyzingthe occupant's motion and, optionally, to send this information bytelematics to one or more remote sites.

34. To provide an occupant sensor which determines whether any occupantsof the vehicle are breathing by analyzing the chemical composition ofthe air/gas in the vehicle and, optionally, to send this information bytelematics to one or more remote sites.

35. To provide an occupant sensor which determines whether any occupantsof the vehicle are conscious by analyzing movement of their eyes,eyelids or other parts and, optionally, to send this information bytelematics to one or more remote sites.

36. To provide an occupant sensor which determines whether any occupantsof the vehicle are wounded to the extent that they are bleeding byanalyzing air/gas in the vehicle and, optionally, to send thisinformation by telematics to one or more remote sites.

37. To provide an occupant sensor which determines the presence andhealth state of any occupants in the vehicle by analyzing soundsemanating from the passenger compartment and, optionally, to send thisinformation by telematics to one or more remote sites. Such sounds canbe directed to a remote, manned site for consideration in dispatchingresponse personnel.

38. To provide an occupant sensor which determines whether any occupantsof the vehicle are moving using radar systems, such as micropowerimpulse radar (MIR), which can also detect the heartbeats of anyoccupants and, optionally, to send this information by telematics to oneor more remote sites.

39. To provide a vehicle monitoring system which provides acommunications channel between the vehicle (possibly through microphonesor speaker transducers distributed throughout the vehicle) and a mannedassistance facility to enable communications with the occupants after acrash or whenever the occupants are in need of assistance (e.g., if theoccupants are lost, then data forming maps as a navigational aid can betransmitted to the vehicle).

40. To provide a vehicle monitoring system using modulated radiation toaid in the determining of the distance from a transducer (eitherultrasonic or electromagnetic) to an occupying item of a vehicle.

41. To provide a glare filter for a glare reduction system that usessemiconducting or metallic (organic) polymers to provide a low costsystem, which may reside in the windshield, visor, mirror or specialdevice.

42. To provide a very low cost monitoring and presence detection systemthat uses the property that water in the near field of an antennachanges the antenna's loading or impedance matching or resonantproperties.

43. To provide a glare filter based on electronic Venetian blinds,polarizers or spatial light monitors.

44. To provide an interior monitoring system which providesthree-dimensional information about an occupying item from a singletransducer mounting location.

45. To provide an interior monitoring system that utilizes either/or thereflection, scattering, absorption or transmission of waves includingcapacitive or other field based sensors.

46. To provide a windshield where a substantial part of the area iscovered by a plastic electronics film for a display and/or glarecontrol.

47. To provide a method of measuring the distance from a sensor to anoccupant or part thereof using calculations based of the degree of focusof an image.

48. To provide for a driver monitoring system using an imagingtransducer mounted on the rear view mirror.

49. Using structured light to determine the distance to an occupant froma transducer.

50. To provide a single camera system that passes the requirements ofFMVSS-208.

51. To control a vehicle component using eye tracking techniques.

52. To use a visor as a display and/or glare stopper.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The following drawings are illustrative of embodiments of the systemdeveloped or adapted using the teachings of this invention and are notmeant to limit the scope of the invention as encompassed by the claims.

FIG. 1 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a vehicleshowing the passenger compartment containing a rear facing child seat onthe front passenger seat and a preferred mounting location for anoccupant and rear facing child seat presence detector including anantenna field sensor and a resonator or reflector placed onto theforward most portion of the child seat.

FIG. 1A is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a vehicleshowing the passenger compartment containing a rear facing child seat onthe front passenger seat having a resonator or reflector placed onto theforward most portion of the child seat.

FIG. 2 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed showingschematically the interface between the vehicle interior monitoringsystem of this invention and the vehicle cellular or other telematicscommunication system including an antenna field sensor.

FIG. 2A is a diagram of one exemplifying embodiment of the invention.

FIG. 3 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed showingschematically the interface between the vehicle interior monitoringsystem of this invention and the vehicle heating and air conditioningsystem and including an antenna field sensor.

FIG. 4 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed showingschematically the interface between the vehicle interior monitoringsystem of this invention and the vehicle airbag system and including anantenna field sensor.

FIG. 5 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed showingschematically the interface between the vehicle interior monitoringsystem of this invention and the vehicle entertainment system.

FIG. 5A is a schematic representation of a vehicle in which theentertainment system utilizes hypersonic sound.

FIG. 6 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a vehicleshowing the passenger compartment containing a driver and a preferredmounting location for an occupant identification system and including anantenna field sensor.

FIG. 7A is a functional block diagram of the ultrasonic imaging systemillustrated in FIG. 1 using a microprocessor, DSP or field programmablegate array (FGPA).

FIG. 7B is a functional block diagram of the ultrasonic imaging systemillustrated in FIG. 1 using an application specific integrated circuit(ASIC).

FIG. 8 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a vehicleshowing the passenger compartment containing a box on the frontpassenger seat and a preferred mounting location for an occupant andrear facing child seat presence detector and including an antenna fieldsensor.

FIG. 9 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a vehicleshowing the passenger compartment containing a driver and a preferredmounting location for an occupant position sensor for use in sideimpacts and also of a rear of occupant's head locator for use with aheadrest adjustment system to reduce whiplash injuries in rear impactcrashes.

FIG. 10 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a vehicleshowing the passenger compartment containing a front passenger and apreferred mounting location for an occupant head detector and apreferred mounting location of an adjustable microphone and speakers andincluding an antenna field sensor in the headrest for a rear ofoccupant's head locator for use with a headrest adjustment system toreduce whiplash injuries, in particular, in rear impact crashes.

FIG. 11 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a subjectvehicle and an oncoming vehicle, showing the headlights of the oncomingvehicle and the passenger compartment of the subject vehicle, containingdetectors of the driver's eyes and detectors for the headlights of theoncoming vehicle and the selective filtering of the light of theapproaching vehicle's headlights through the use of electro-chronicglass, organic or metallic semiconductor polymers or electrophericparticulates (SPD) in the windshield.

FIG. 11A is an enlarged view of the section 11A in FIG. 11.

FIG. 12 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a vehicle and afollowing vehicle showing the headlights of the following vehicle andthe passenger compartment of the leading vehicle containing a driver anda preferred mounting location for driver eyes and following vehicleheadlight detectors and the selective filtering of the light of thefollowing vehicle's headlights through the use of electrochromic glass,SPD glass or equivalent, in the rear view mirror.

FIG. 12A is an enlarged view of the section designated 12A in FIG. 12.

FIG. 12B is an enlarged view of the section designated 12B in FIG. 12A.

FIG. 13 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a vehicleshowing the passenger compartment containing a driver, a shoulder heightsensor and a seatbelt anchorage adjustment system.

FIG. 14 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of a seat in thepassenger compartment of a vehicle showing the use of resonators orreflectors to determine the position of the seat.

FIG. 15 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of the passengercompartment of a vehicle showing the use of resonators or reflectors todetermine the position of the driver seatbelt.

FIG. 16 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of the passengercompartment of a vehicle showing the use of a resonator or reflector todetermine the extent of opening of the driver window and of a system fordetermining the presence of an object, such as the hand of an occupant,in the window opening.

FIG. 16A is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of the passengercompartment of a vehicle showing the use of a resonator or reflector todetermine the extent of opening of the driver window and of anothersystem for determining the presence of an object, such as the hand of anoccupant, in the window opening.

FIG. 17 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed of the passengercompartment of a vehicle showing the use of a resonator or reflector todetermine the extent of opening position of the driver side door.

FIG. 18 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed showingschematically the interface between the vehicle interior monitoringsystem of this invention and the vehicle security system.

FIG. 19 is a side view with parts cutaway and removed showingschematically the interface between the vehicle interior monitoringsystem of this invention and an instrument panel mounted inattentivenesswarning light or buzzer and reset button.

FIG. 20 is a block diagram of an antenna-based near field objectdiscriminator.

FIG. 21 illustrates the interior of a passenger compartment with a rearview mirror, a camera for viewing the eyes of the driver and a largegenerally transparent visor for glare filtering.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

1. Basic System

Referring to the accompanying drawings wherein the same referencenumerals refer to the same or similar elements, FIG. 1 is a side view,with parts cutaway and removed of a vehicle showing the passengercompartment containing a rear facing child seat 110 on a front passengerseat 120 and a preferred mounting location for a first embodiment of avehicle interior monitoring system in accordance with the invention. Theinterior monitoring system is capable of detecting the presence of anoccupant and the rear facing child seat 110 (or more generally, a childseat and its orientation). In this embodiment, three transducers 131,132 and 133 are used alone, or, alternately in combination with one ortwo antenna near field monitoring sensors or transducers, 140 and 141,although any number of wave-transmitting transducers orradiation-receiving receivers may be used. Such transducers or receiversmay be of the type that emit or receive a continuous signal, a timevarying signal or a spatial varying signal such as in a scanning system.One particular type of radiation-receiving receiver for use in theinvention is a receiver capable of receiving electromagnetic waves.

In an ultrasonic embodiment, transducer 132 transmits ultrasonic energytoward the front passenger seat, which is modified, in this case by theoccupying item of the passenger seat, for example the rear facing childseat 110, and the modified waves are received by the transducers 131 and133. Modification of the ultrasonic energy may constitute reflection ofthe ultrasonic energy back by the occupying item of the seat. The wavesreceived by transducers 131 and 133 vary with time depending on theshape, location and size of the object occupying the passenger seat, inthis case the rear facing child seat 110. Each different occupying itemwill reflect back waves having a different pattern. Also, the pattern ofwaves received by transducer 131 will differ from the pattern receivedby transducer 133 in view of its different mounting location. In somesystems, this difference permits the determination of location of thereflecting surface (for example the rear facing child seat 110) throughtriangulation. Through the use of two transducers 131,133, a sort ofstereographic image is received by the two transducers and recorded foranalysis by processor 101, which is coupled to the transducers131,132,133.

Transducer 132 can also be a source of electromagnetic radiation, suchas an LED, and transducers 131 and 133 can be CMOS, CCD imagers or otherdevices sensitive to electromagnetic radiation or fields. This “image”or return signal will differ for each object that is placed on thevehicle seat and it will also change for each position of a particularobject and for each position of the vehicle seat. Elements 131,132,133,although described as transducers, are representative of any type ofcomponent used in a wave-based or electric field analysis technique,including, e.g., a transmitter, antenna or a capacitor plate.

Transducers 140, 141 and 146 are antennas placed in the seat andinstrument panel such that the presence of an object, particularly awater-containing object such as a human, disturbs the near field of theantenna. This disturbance can be detected by various means such as withMicrel parts MICREF102 and MICREF104, which have a built in antennaauto-tune circuit. These parts cannot be used as is and it is necessaryto redesign the chips to allow the auto-tune information to be retrievedfrom the chip.

The “image” recorded from each ultrasonic transducer/receiver(transceiver), for ultrasonic systems, is actually a time series ofdigitized data of the amplitude of the received signal versus time.Since there are two receivers in this example, two time series areobtained which are processed by processor 101. Processor 101 may includeelectronic circuitry and associated embedded software. Processor 101constitutes one form of generating mechanism in accordance with theinvention that generates information about the occupancy of thepassenger compartment based on the waves received by the transducers131,132,133. This three-transducer system is for illustration purposesonly and the preferred system will usually have at least threetransceivers that may operate at the same or at different frequenciesand each may receive reflected waves from itself or any one or more ofthe other transceivers or sources of radiation.

Other types of transducers can be used along with the transducers131,132,133 or separately and all are contemplated by this invention.Such transducers include other wave devices such as radar or electronicfield sensing such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,366,241 to Kithil,U.S. Pat. No. 5,602,734 to Kithil, 5,691,693 to Kithil, 5,802,479 toKithil, 5,844,486 to Kithil, U.S. Pat. No. 5,948,031 to Rittmueller,U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,602 to Kithil, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,275,146 toKithil, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. Anothertechnology, for example, uses the fact that the content of the nearfield of an antenna affects the resonant tuning of the antenna. Examplesof such a device are shown as antennas 140, 141 and 146 in FIG. 1. Bygoing to lower frequencies, the near field range is increased and alsoat such lower frequencies, a ferrite-type antenna could be used tominimize the size of the antenna. Other antennas that may be applicablefor a particular implementation include dipole, microstrip, patch, yagietc. The frequency transmitted by the antenna can be swept and the(VSWR) voltage and current in the antenna feed circuit can be measured.Classification by frequency domain is then possible. That is, if thecircuit is tuned by the antenna, the frequency can be measured todetermine the object in the field.

An alternate system is shown in FIG. 2, which is a side view showingschematically the interface between the vehicle interior monitoringsystem of this invention and the vehicle cellular or other communicationsystem. In this view, an adult occupant 210 is shown sitting on thefront passenger seat 220 and two transducers 231 and 232 are used todetermine the presence (or absence) of the occupant on that seat 220.One of the transducers 232 in this case acts as both a transmitter andreceiver while transducer 231 acts only as a receiver. Alternately,transducer 231 could serve as both a transmitter and receiver or thetransmitting function could be alternated between the two devices. Also,in many cases more that two transmitters and receivers are used and instill other cases other types of sensors, such as weight, seatbelttension sensor or switch, heartbeat, self tuning antennas (140,141),motion and seat and seatback position sensors, are also used alone or incombination with the radiation sensors 231 and 232. As is also the casein FIG. 1, the transducers 231 and 232 are attached to the vehicleembedded in the A-pillar and headliner trim, where their presence isdisguised, and are connected to processor 101 that may also hidden inthe trim as shown or elsewhere. The A-pillar is the roof support pillarthat is closest to the front of the vehicle and which, in addition tosupporting the roof, also supports the front windshield and the frontdoor. Naturally, other mounting locations can also be used and in mostcases preferred as disclosed in Varga et. al. U.S. Pat. No. RE 37,260.

More specifically, FIG. 1A shows a transducer 231′ mounted in theheadliner of the vehicle and a transducer 231″ arranged in the seat.Transducers 231′, 231″ each include at least a receiver component forreceiving waves which can be processed to determine the presence orabsence of an occupant on the seat, including the presence or absence ofa child seat and optionally, its orientation. Transducers 231′,231″ canalso be used for any other purpose disclosed herein, e.g, obtaininginformation about the occupant, such as position, movement oridentification.

The cellular phone system, or other telematics communication device, isshown schematically by box 240 and outputs to an antenna 250A. The phonesystem or telematics communication device 240 can be coupled to thevehicle interior monitoring system in accordance with any of theembodiments disclosed herein and serves to establish a communicationschannel with one or more remote assistance facilities, such as an EMSfacility or dispatch facility from which emergency response personnelare dispatched.

The transducers 231 and 232 in conjunction with the pattern recognitionhardware and software described below, which is implemented in processor101 and is packaged on a printed circuit board or flex circuit alongwith the transducers 231 and 232, determine the presence of an occupantwithin a few seconds after the vehicle is started. Similar systemslocated to monitor the remaining seats in the vehicle, also determinethe presence of occupants at the other seating locations and this resultis stored in the computer memory, which is part of each monitoringsystem processor 101. Processor 101 thus enables a count of the numberof occupants in the vehicle to be obtained by addition of the determinedpresences of occupants by the transducers associated with each seatinglocation, and in fact can be designed to perform such an addition.

2. Accidents, Health Monitoring and Telematics

In the event of an accident, the electronic system associated with thetelematics system interrogates the various interior monitoring systemmemories in processor 101 and arrives at a count of the number ofoccupants in the vehicle, and, in more sophisticated systems, even makesa determination as to whether each occupant was wearing a seatbelt andif he or she is moving after the accident or the health state of one ormore of the occupants as described above, for example. The telematicscommunication system then automatically notifies an EMS operator (suchas 911, OnStar® or equivalent) and the information obtained from theinterior monitoring systems is forwarded so that a determination can bemade as to the number of ambulances and other equipment to send to theaccident site. Vehicles having the capability of notifying EMS in theevent one or more airbags deployed are now in service but are notbelieved to use any of the innovative interior monitoring systemsdescribed herein. Such vehicles will also have a system, such as theglobal positioning system, which permits the vehicle to determine itslocation and to forward this information to the EMS operator.

Thus, in basic embodiments of the invention, wave or energy-receivingtransducers are arranged in the vehicle at appropriate locations,trained if necessary depending on the particular embodiment (asdescribed below), and function to determine whether a life form ispresent in the vehicle and if so, how many life forms are present, wherethey are located and their approximate sizes and perhaps some vitalsigns to indicate their health or injury state (breathing, pulse rateetc.). A determination can also be made using the transducers as towhether the life forms are humans, or more specifically, adults, childin child seats, etc. As noted above and below, this is possible usingpattern recognition techniques. Moreover, the processor or processorsassociated with the transducers can be trained to determine the locationof the life forms, either periodically or continuously or possibly onlyimmediately before, during and after a crash. The location of the lifeforms can be as general or as specific as necessary depending on thesystem requirements. For example, a determination can be made that ahuman is situated on the driver's seat in a normal position (general) ora determination can be made that a human is situated on the driver'sseat and is leaning forward and/or to the side at a specific angle aswell as the position of his or her extremities and head and chest(specific). The degree of detail is limited by several factors,including among others the number and position of transducers andtraining of the pattern recognition algorithm.

In addition to the use of transducers to determine the presence andlocation of occupants in a vehicle, other sensors could also be used.For example, a heartbeat sensor, which determines the number andpresence of heartbeats, can also be arranged in the vehicle.Conventional heartbeat sensors can be adapted to differentiate between aheartbeat of an adult, a heartbeat of a child and a heartbeat of ananimal. As its name implies, a heartbeat sensor detects a heartbeat, andthe magnitude thereof, of a human occupant of the seat, if such a humanoccupant is present. The output of the heartbeat sensor is input to theprocessor of the interior monitoring system. One heartbeat sensor foruse in the invention may be of the types as disclosed in McEwan in U.S.Pat. Nos. 5,573,012 and 5,766,208, which are incorporated herein intheir entirety by reference. The heartbeat sensor can be positioned atany convenient position relative to the seats where occupancy is beingmonitored. A preferred location is within the vehicle seatback.

This type of micropower impulse radar (MIR) sensor is not believed tohave been used in an interior monitoring system heretofore. It can beused to determine the motion of an occupant and thus can determine hisor her heartbeat (as evidenced by motion of the chest), for example.Such an MIR sensor can also be arranged to detect motion in a particulararea in which the occupant's chest would most likely be situated orcould be coupled to an arrangement which determines the location of theoccupant's chest and then adjusts the operational field of the MIRsensor based on the determined location of the occupant's chest. Amotion sensor utilizing a micro-power impulse radar (MIR) system asdisclosed, for example, in McEwan (U.S. Pat. No. 5,361,070, which isincorporated herein by reference), as well as many other patents by thesame inventor. Motion sensing is accomplished by monitoring a particularrange from the sensor as disclosed in that patent. MIR is one form ofradar that has applicability to occupant sensing and can be mounted atvarious locations in the vehicle. Other forms include, among others,ultra wideband (UWB) by the Time Domain Corporation and noise radar (NR)by Professor Konstantin Lukin of the National Academy of Sciences ofUkraine Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics. Radar has anadvantage over ultrasonic sensors in that data can be acquired at ahigher speed and thus the motion of an occupant can be more easilytracked. The ability to obtain returns over the entire occupancy rangeis somewhat more difficult than with ultrasound resulting in a moreexpensive system overall. MIR, UWB or NR have additional advantages inlack of sensitivity to temperature variation and has a comparableresolution to about 40 kHz ultrasound. Resolution comparable to higherfrequency is of course possible using millimeter waves, for example.Additionally, multiple MIR, UWB or NR sensors can be used when highspeed tracking of the motion of an occupant during a crash is requiredsince they can be individually pulsed without interfering with eachother through time division, code division or other multiplexingschemes.

The maximum acoustic frequency that is practical to use for acousticimaging in the acoustic systems herein is about 40 to 160 kilohertz(kHz). The wavelength of a 50 kHz acoustic wave is about 0.6 cm, whichis too coarse to determine the fine features of a person's face, forexample. It is well understood by those skilled in the art that featuresthat are smaller than the wavelength of the irradiating radiation cannotbe distinguished. Similarly, the wavelength of common radar systemsvaries from about 0.9 cm (for 33,000 MHz K band) to 133 cm (for 225 MHzP band), which is also too coarse for person identification systems.Millimeter wave and submillimeter wave radar can of course emit andreceive waves considerably smaller. Microwave radar and in particularMicropower Impulse Radar (MIR) as discussed above is particularly usefulfor occupant detection and especially the motion of occupants such asmotion caused by heartbeats and breathing. For security purposes, forexample, MIR can be used to detect the presence of weapons on a personthat might be approaching a vehicle such as a bus, truck or train andthus provide a warning of a potential terrorist threat. MIR is reflectedby edges, joints and boundaries and through the technique of rangegating, particular slices in space can be observed. Millimeter waveradar, particularly in the passive mode, can also be used to locate lifeforms because they naturally emit waves at particular frequencies suchas 3 mm. A passive image of such a person will also show the presence ofconcealed weapons as they block this radiation. Similarly, activemillimeter wave radar reflects off of metallic objects but is absorbedby the water in a life form The absorption property can be used byplacing a radar receiver or reflector behind the occupant and measuringthe shadow caused by the absorption. The reflective property of weaponsincluding plastics can be used as above to detect possible terroristthreats. Finally, the use of submillimeter waves again using a detectoror reflector on the other side of the occupant can be used not only todetermine the density of the occupant but also some measure of itschemical composition as the chemical properties alter the pulse shape.Such waves are more readily absorbed by water than by plastic. From theabove discussion, it can be seen that there are advantages of usingdifferent frequencies of radar for different purposes and, in somecases, a combination of frequencies is most useful. This combinationoccurs naturally with noise radar (NR), ultra-wideband radar (UWB) andMIR and these technologies are most appropriate for occupant detectionwhen using electromagnetic radiation at longer wavelengths than visiblelight and IR.

An alternative way to determine motion of the occupant(s) is to monitorthe weight distribution of the occupant whereby changes in weightdistribution after an accident would be highly suggestive of movement ofthe occupant A system for determining the weight distribution of theoccupants can be integrated or otherwise arranged in the seats 120,220of the vehicle and several patents and publications describe suchsystems.

More generally, any sensor that determines the presence and health stateof an occupant can also be integrated into the vehicle interiormonitoring system in accordance with the invention. For example, asensitive motion sensor can determine whether an occupant is breathingand a chemical sensor can determine the amount of carbon dioxide, or theconcentration of carbon dioxide, in the air in the vehicle, which can becorrelated to the health state of the occupant(s). The motion sensor andchemical sensor can be designed to have a fixed operational fieldsituated near the occupant. In the alternative, the motion sensor andchemical sensor can be adjustable and adapted to adjust theiroperational field in conjunction with a determination by an occupantposition and location sensor that would determine the location ofspecific parts of the occupant's body such as his or her chest or mouth.Furthermore, an occupant position and location sensor can be used todetermine the location of the occupant's eyes and determine whether theoccupant is conscious, that is, whether his or her eyes are open orclosed or moving.

Chemical sensors can also be used to detect whether there is bloodpresent in the vehicle such as after an accident. Additionally,microphones can detect whether there is noise in the vehicle caused bygroaning, yelling, etc., and transmit any such noise through thecellular or similar connection to a remote listening facility using atelematics communication system such as operated by OnStar™.

FIG. 2A shows a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the inventionincluding a system for determining the presence and health state of anyoccupants of the vehicle and a telecommunications link. This embodimentincludes means for determining the presence of any occupants 10 whichmay take the form of a heartbeat sensor, chemical sensor or motionsensor as described above and means for determining the health state ofany occupants 12. The latter means may be integrated into the means fordetermining the presence of any occupants using the same or differentcomponent. The presence determining means 10 may encompass a dedicatedpresence determination device associated with each seating location inthe vehicle, or at least sufficient presence determination deviceshaving the ability to determine the presence of an occupant at eachseating location in the vehicle. Further, means for determining thelocation, and optionally velocity, of the occupants or one or more partsthereof 14 are provided and may be any conventional occupant positionsensor or preferably, one of the occupant position sensors as describedherein such as those utilizing waves such as electromagnetic radiationor fields such as capacitance sensors or as described in the currentassignee's patents and patent applications referenced above.

A processor 16 is coupled to the presence determining means 10, thehealth state determining means 12 and the location determining means 14.A communications unit 18 is coupled to the processor 16. The processor16 and/or communications unit 18 can also be coupled to microphones 20distributed throughout the vehicle and include voice-processingcircuitry to enable the occupant(s) to effect vocal control of theprocessor 16, communications unit 18 or any coupled component or oralcommunications via the communications unit 18. The processor 16 is alsocoupled to another vehicular system, component or subsystem 22 and canissue control commands to effect adjustment of the operating conditionsof the system, component or subsystem. Such a system, component orsubsystem can be the heating or air-conditioning system, theentertainment system, an occupant restraint device such as an airbag, aglare prevention system, etc. Also, a positioning system 24, such as aGPS or differential GPS system, could be coupled to the processor 16 andprovides an indication of the absolute position of the vehicle.

The communications unit 18 performs the function of enablingestablishment of a communications channel to a remote facility toreceive information about the occupancy of the vehicle as determined bythe presence determining means 10, occupant health state determiningmeans 12 and/or occupant location determining means 14 Thecommunications unit 18 thus can be designed to transmit over asufficiently large range and at an established frequency monitored bythe remote facility, which may be an EMS facility, sheriff department,or fire department.

In normal use (other than after a crash), the presence determining means10 determine whether any human occupants are present, i.e., adults orchildren, and the location determining means 14 determines theoccupant's location. The processor 16 receives signals representative ofthe presence of occupants and their location and determines whether thevehicular system, component or subsystem 22 can be modified to optimizeits operation for the specific arrangement of occupants. For example, ifthe processor 16 determines that only the front seats in the vehicle areoccupied, it could control the heating system to provide heat onlythrough vents situated to provide heat for the front-seated occupants.

Another vehicular telematics system, component or subsystem is anavigational aid, such as a route guidance display or map. In this case,the position of the vehicle as determined by the positioning system 24is conveyed through processor 16 to the communications unit 18 to aremote facility and a map is transmitted from this facility to thevehicle to be displayed on the route display. If directions are needed,a request for such directions can be entered into an input unit 26associated with the processor 16 and transmitted to the facility. Datafor the display map and/or vocal instructions can then be transmittedfrom this facility to the vehicle.

Moreover, using this embodiment, it is possible to remotely monitor thehealth state of the occupants in the vehicle and most importantly, thedriver. The health state determining means 12 may be used to detectwhether the driver's breathing is erratic or indicative of a state inwhich the driver is dozing off. The health state determining means 12can also include a breath-analyzer to determine whether the driver'sbreath contains alcohol. In this case, the health state of the driver isrelayed through the processor 16 and the communications unit 18 to theremote facility and appropriate action can be taken. For example, itwould be possible to transmit a command to the vehicle to activate analarm or illuminate a warning light or if the vehicle is equipped withan automatic guidance system and ignition shut-off, to cause the vehicleto come to a stop on the shoulder of the roadway or elsewhere out of thetraffic stream. The alarm, warning light, automatic guidance system andignition shut-off are thus particular vehicular components or subsystemsrepresented by 22.

In use after a crash, the presence determining means 10, health statedetermining means 12 and location determining means 14 obtain readingsfrom the passenger compartment and direct such readings to the processor16. The processor 16 analyzes the information and directs or controlsthe transmission of the information about the occupant(s) to a remote,manned facility. Such information could include the number and type ofoccupants, i.e., adults, children, infants, whether any of the occupantshave stopped breathing or are breathing erratically, whether theoccupants are conscious (as evidenced by, e.g., eye motion), whetherblood is present (as detected by a chemical sensor) and whether theoccupants are making sounds. The determination of the number ofoccupants is obtained from the presence determining mechanism 10, i.e.,the number of occupants whose presence is detected is the number ofoccupants in the passenger compartment. The determination of the statusof the occupants, i.e., whether they are moving is performed by thehealth state determining mechanism 12, such as the motion sensors,heartbeat sensors, chemical sensors, etc. Moreover, the communicationslink through the communications unit 18 can be activated immediatelyafter the crash to enable personnel at the remote facility to initiatecommunications with the vehicle.

3. Pattern Recognition

When different objects are placed on the front passenger seat, the twoimages (here “image” is used to represent any form of signal) fromtransducers 131,133 (FIG. 1) are different but there are alsosimilarities between all images of rear facing child seats, for example,regardless of where on the vehicle seat it is placed and regardless ofwhat company manufactured the child seat. Alternately, there will besimilarities between all images of people sitting on the seat regardlessof what they are wearing, their age or size. The problem is to find theset of “rules” or algorithm that differentiates the images of one typeof object from the images of other types of objects, for example whichdifferentiate the adult occupant images from the rear facing child seatimages. The similarities of these images for various child seats arefrequently not obvious to a person looking at plots of the time seriesfrom ultrasonic sensors and thus computer algorithms are developed tosort out the various patterns. For a more detailed discussion of patternrecognition see U.S. Pat. No. RE37260 to Varga et. al., which isincorporated herein by reference.

The determination of these rules is important to the pattern recognitiontechniques used in this invention. In general, three approaches havebeen useful, artificial intelligence, fuzzy logic and artificial neuralnetworks including modular neural networks. Other types of patternrecognition techniques may also be used, such as sensor fusion asdisclosed in Corrado U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,482,314, 5,890,085, and 6,249,729,which are incorporated herein by reference. In some implementations ofthis invention, such as the determination that there is an object in thepath of a closing window using acoustics as described below, the rulesare sufficiently obvious that a trained researcher can look at thereturned acoustic signals and devise an algorithm to make the requireddeterminations. In others, such as the determination of the presence ofa rear facing child seat or of an occupant, artificial neural networksare used to determine the rules. Neural network software for determiningthe pattern recognition rules is available from the NeuralWareCorporation of Pittsburgh, Pa. Modular neural network software isavailable from International Scientific Research, Inc (ISR) of Romeo,Mich.

The system used in a preferred implementation of this invention for thedetermination of the presence of a rear facing child seat, of anoccupant or of an empty seat, for example, is the artificial neuralnetwork, which is also commonly referred to as a trained neural network.In this case, the network operates on the two returned signals as sensedby transducers 131 and 133. Through a training session, the system istaught to differentiate between the different cases. This is done byconducting a large number of experiments where a selection of thepossible child seats are placed in a large number of possibleorientations on the front passenger seat. Similarly, a sufficientlylarge number of experiments are run with human occupants and with boxes,bags of groceries and other objects (both inanimate and animate). Foreach experiment with different objects and the same object in differentpositions, the returned signals from the transducers 131,133, forexample, are associated with the identification of the occupant in theseat or the empty seat and information about the occupant such as itsorientation if it is a child seat and/or position. Data sets are formedfrom the returned signals and the identification and information aboutthe occupant or the absence of an occupant. The data sets are input intoa neural network-generating program that creates a trained neuralnetwork that can, upon receiving input of two returned signals from thetransducers 131,133, provide an output of the identification andinformation about the occupant most likely situated in the seat orascertained the existence of an empty seat. Sometimes as many as1,000,000 such experiments are run before the neural network issufficiently trained and tested so that it can differentiate among theseveral cases and output the correct decision with a very highprobability. Of course, it must be realized that a neural network canalso be trained to differentiate among additional cases, for example, aforward facing child seat.

Once the network is determined, it is possible to examine the resultusing tools supplied by NeuralWare or ISR, for example, to determine therules that were arrived at by the trial and error process. In that case,the rules can then be programmed into a microprocessor resulting in arule-based system. Alternately, a neural computer can be used toimplement the net directly. In either case, the implementation can becarried out by those skilled in the art of pattern recognition. If amicroprocessor is used, an additional memory device may be required tostore the data from the analog to digital converters that digitize thedata from the receiving transducers. On the other hand, if a neuralnetwork computer is used, the analog signal can be fed directly from thetransducers to the neural network input nodes and an intermediate memoryis not required. Memory of some type is needed to store the computerprograms in the case of the microprocessor system and if the neuralcomputer is used for more than one task, a memory is needed to store thenetwork specific values associated with each task.

4. Additions to Basic System

4.1 Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning

The control of the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC)system can also be a part of the system although alone it would probablynot justify the implementation of an interior monitoring system at leastuntil the time comes when electronic heating and cooling systems replacethe conventional systems now used. Nevertheless, if the monitoringsystem is present, it can be used to control the HVAC for a smallincrement in cost. The advantage of such a system is that since mostvehicles contain only a single occupant, there is no need to direct heator air conditioning to unoccupied seats. This permits the most rapidheating or cooling for the driver when the vehicle is first started andhe or she is alone without heating or cooling unoccupied seats. Sincethe HVAC system does consume energy, an energy saving also results byonly heating and cooling the driver when he or she is alone.

FIG. 3 shows a side view of a vehicle passenger compartment showingschematically an interface 260 between the vehicle interior monitoringsystem of this invention and the vehicle heating and air conditioningsystem. In addition to the transducers 231 and 232, which at least inthis embodiment are preferably acoustic transducers, an infrared sensor234 is also shown mounted in the A-pillar and is constructed andoperated to monitor the temperature of the occupant. The output fromeach of the transducers is fed into processor 101 that is in turnconnected to interface 260. In this manner, the HVAC control is based onthe occupant's temperature rather than that of the ambient air in thevehicle, as well as the determined presence of the occupant viatransducers 231,232 as described above. This also permits each vehicleoccupant to be independently monitored and the HVAC system to beadjusted for each occupant either based on a set temperature for alloccupants or, alternately, each occupant could be permitted to set hisor her own preferred temperature through adjusting a control knob shownschematically as 250 in FIG. 3. Since the monitoring system is alreadyinstalled in the vehicle with its associated electronics includingprocessor 101, the infrared sensor can be added with little additionalcost and can share the processing unit.

4.2 Control of Passive Restraints

The use of the vehicle interior monitoring system to control thedeployment of an airbag is discussed in detail in U.S. Pat. No.5,653,462 referenced above. In that case, the control is based on theuse of a pattern recognition system, such as a neural network, todifferentiate between the occupant and his extremities in order toprovide an accurate determination of the position of the occupantrelative to the airbag. If the occupant is sufficiently close to theairbag module that he is more likely to be injured by the deploymentitself than by the accident, the deployment of the airbag is suppressed.This process is carried further by the interior monitoring systemdescribed herein in that the nature or identity of the object occupyingthe vehicle seat is used to contribute to the airbag deploymentdecision. FIG. 4 shows a side view illustrating schematically theinterface between the vehicle interior monitoring system of thisinvention and the vehicle airbag system 270.

In this embodiment, an ultrasonic transducer 232 transmits a burst ofultrasonic waves that travel to the occupant where they are reflectedback to transducers or receptors/receivers 231 and 232. The time periodrequired for the waves to travel from the generator and return is usedto determine the distance from the occupant to the airbag as describedin the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,653,462, i.e., and thus may alsobe used to determine the position or location of the occupant. In thecase of this invention, however, the portion of the return signal thatrepresents the occupants' head or chest, has been determined based onpattern recognition techniques such as a neural network. The relativevelocity of the occupant toward the airbag can then be determined, fromsuccessive position measurements, which permits a sufficiently accurateprediction of the time when the occupant would become proximate to theairbag. By comparing the occupant relative velocity to the integral ofthe crash deceleration pulse, a determination as to whether the occupantis being restrained by a seatbelt can also be made which then can affectthe airbag deployment initiation decision. Alternately, the mereknowledge that the occupant has moved a distance that would not bepossible if he were wearing a seatbelt gives information that he is notwearing one.

A more detailed discussion of this process and of the advantages of thevarious technologies, such as acoustic or electromagnetic, can be foundin SAE paper 940527, “Vehicle Occupant Position Sensing” by Breed et al,which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety to the extentthe disclosure of this paper is necessary. In this paper, it isdemonstrated that the time delay required for acoustic waves to travelto the occupant and return does not prevent the use of acoustics forposition measurement of occupants during the crash event. For positionmeasurement and for many pattern recognition applications, ultrasonicsis the preferred technology due to the lack of adverse health effectsand the low cost of ultrasonic systems compared with either camera,laser or radar based systems. The main limiting feature of ultrasonicsis the wavelength, which places a limitation on the size of featuresthat can be discerned. Optical systems, for example, are required whenthe identification of particular individuals is required.

4.3 Entertainment and Hypersonic Sound

It is well known among acoustics engineers that the quality of soundcoming from an entertainment system can be substantially affected by thecharacteristics and contents of the space in which it operates and thesurfaces surrounding that space. When an engineer is designing a systemfor an automobile he or she has a great deal of knowledge about thatspace and of the vehicle surfaces surrounding it. He or she has littleknowledge of how many occupants are likely to be in the vehicle on aparticular day, however, and therefore the system is a compromise. Ifthe system knew the number and position of the vehicle occupants, andmaybe even their size, then adjustments could be made in the systemoutput and the sound quality improved. FIG. 5, therefore, illustratesschematically the interface between the vehicle interior monitoringsystem of this invention, i.e., transducers 231,232 and processor 101which operate as set forth above, and the vehicle entertainment system280. The particular design of the entertainment system that uses theinformation provided by the monitoring system can be determined by thoseskilled in the appropriate art. Perhaps in combination with this system,the quality of the sound system can be measured by the audio systemitself either by using the speakers as receiving units also or throughthe use of special microphones. The quality of the sound can then beadjusted according to the vehicle occupancy and the reflectivity of thevehicle occupants. If, for example, certain frequencies are beingreflected more that others, the audio amplifier can be adjusted toamplify those frequencies to a lesser amount that others.

Recent developments in the field of directing sound using hyper-sound(also referred to as hypersonic sound) now make it possible toaccurately direct sound to the vicinity of the ears of an occupant sothat only that occupant can hear the sound. The system of this inventioncan thus be used to find the proximate direction of the ears of theoccupant for this purpose.

Hypersonic sound is described in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,885,129(Norris), U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,870 (Norris) and U.S. Pat. No. 6,016,351(Raida et al.) and International Publication No. WO 00/18031 which areincorporated by reference herein in their entirety to the extent thedisclosure of these references is necessary. By practicing thetechniques described in these patents and the publication, in some casescoupled with a mechanical or acoustical steering mechanism, sound can bedirected to the location of the ears of a particular vehicle occupant insuch a manner that the other occupants can barely hear the sound, if atall. This is particularly the case when the vehicle is operating at highspeeds on the highway and a high level of “white” noise is present. Inthis manner, one occupant can be listening to the news while another islistening to an opera, for example. Naturally, white noise can also beadded to the vehicle and generated by the hypersonic sound system ifnecessary when the vehicle is stopped or traveling in heavy trafficThus, several occupants of a vehicle can listen to different programmingwithout the other occupants hearing that programming. This can beaccomplished using hypersonic sound without requiring earphones.

In principle, hypersonic sound utilizes the emission of inaudibleultrasonic frequencies that mix in air and result in the generation ofnew audio frequencies. A hypersonic sound system is a highly efficientconverter of electrical energy to acoustical energy. Sound is created inair at any desired point that provides flexibility and allowsmanipulation of the perceived location of the source of the sound.Speaker enclosures are thus rendered dispensable. The dispersion of themixing area of the ultrasonic frequencies and thus the area in which thenew audio frequencies are audible can be controlled to provide a verynarrow or wide area as desired.

The audio mixing area generated by each set of two ultrasonic frequencygenerators in accordance with the invention could thus be directly infront of the ultrasonic frequency generators in which case the audiofrequencies would travel from the mixing area in a narrow straight beamor cone to the occupant. Also, the mixing area can include only a singleear of an occupant (another mixing area being formed by ultrasonicfrequencies generated by a set of two other ultrasonic frequencygenerators at the location of the other ear of the occupant withpresumably but not definitely the same new audio frequencies) or belarge enough to encompass the head and both ears of the occupant. If sodesired, the mixing area could even be controlled to encompass thedetermined location of the ears of multiple occupants, e.g , occupantsseated one behind the other or one next to another

Vehicle entertainment system 280 may include means for generating andtransmitting sound waves at the ears of the occupants, the position ofwhich are detected by transducers 231,232 and processor 101, as well asmeans for detecting the presence and direction of unwanted noise. Inthis manner, appropriate sound waves can be generated and transmitted tothe occupant to cancel the unwanted noise and thereby optimize thecomfort of the occupant, i.e., the reception of the desired sound fromthe entertainment system 280.

More particularly, the entertainment system 280 includes soundgenerating components such as speakers, the output of which can becontrolled to enable particular occupants to each listen to a specificmusical selection. As such, each occupant can listen to different music,or multiple occupants can listen to the same music while otheroccupant(s) listen to different music. Control of the speakers to directsound waves at a particular occupant, i.e., at the ears of theparticular occupant located in any of the ways discussed herein, can beenabled by any known manner in the art, for example, speakers having anadjustable position and/or orientation or speakers producing directablesound waves. In this manner, once the occupants are located, thespeakers are controlled to direct the sound waves at the occupant, oreven more specifically, at the head or ears of the occupants.

FIG. 5A shows a schematic of a vehicle with four sound generating units281,282,283,284 forming part of the entertainment system 280 of thevehicle which is coupled to the processor 101. Sound generating unit 281is located to provide sound to the driver Sound generating unit 282 islocated to provide sound for the front-seated passenger. Soundgenerating unit 283 is located to provide sound for the passenger in therear seat behind the driver and sound generating unit 284 is located toprovide sound for the passenger in the rear seat behind the front-seatedpassenger. A single sound generating unit could be used to provide soundfor multiple locations or multiple sound generating units could be usedto provide sound for a single location.

Sound generating units 281,282,283,284 operate independently and areactivated independently so that, for example, when the rear seat isempty, sound generating units 283,284 are not operated. This constitutescontrol of the entertainment system based on, for example, the presence,number and position of the occupants. Further, each sound generatingunit 281-284 can generate different sounds so as to customize the audioreception for each occupant.

Each sound generating units 281,282,283,284 may be constructed toutilize hypersonic sound to enable specific, desired sounds to bedirected to each occupant independent of sound directed to anotheroccupant. The construction of sound generating units utilizinghypersonic sound is described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,885,129,5,889,870 and 6,016,351 mentioned above and incorporated by referenceherein. In general, in hypersonic sound, ultrasonic waves are generatedby a pair of ultrasonic frequency generators and mix after generation tocreate new audio frequencies. By appropriate positioning, orientationand/or control of the ultrasonic frequency generators, the new audiofrequencies will be created in an area encompassing the head of theoccupant intended to receive the new audio frequencies. Control of thesound generating units 281-284 is accomplished automatically upon adetermination by the monitoring system of at least the position of anyoccupants.

Furthermore, multiple sound generating units or speakers can be providedfor each sitting position and these sound generating units or speakersindependently activated so that only those sound generating units orspeakers which provide sound waves at the determined position of theears of the occupant will be activated. In this case, there could befour speakers associated with each seat and only two speakers would beactivated for, e.g., a small person whose ears are determined to bebelow the upper edge of the seat, whereas the other two would beactivated for a large person whose ears are determined to be above theupper edge of the seat. All four could be activated for a medium sizeperson. This type of control, i.e., control over which of a plurality ofspeakers are activated, would likely be most advantageous when theoutput direction of the speakers is fixed in position and provide soundwaves only for a predetermined region of the passenger compartment.

When the entertainment system comprises speakers which generate actualaudio frequencies, the speakers can be controlled to provide differentoutputs for the speakers based on the occupancy of the seats. Forexample, using the identification methods disclosed herein, the identityof the occupants can be determined in association with each seatingposition and, by enabling such occupants to store music preferences, forexample a radio station, the speakers associated with each seatingposition can be controlled to provide music from the respective radiostation. The speakers could also be automatically directed or orientableso that at least one speaker directs sound toward each occupant presentin the vehicle. Speakers that cannot direct sound to an occupant wouldnot be activated.

Thus, one of the more remarkable advantages of the improved audioreception system and method disclosed herein is that by monitoring theposition of the occupants, the entertainment system can be controlledwithout manual input to optimize audio reception by the occupants. Noisecancellation is now possible for each occupant independently.

4.4 Other Electromagnetic Transducers

In FIG. 6 the ultrasonic transducers of the previous designs arereplaced by laser or other electromagnetic wave transducers ortransceivers 231 and 232, which are connected to a microprocessor 101.As discussed above, these are only illustrative mounting locations andany of the locations described herein are suitable for particulartechnologies. Also such electromagnetic transceivers are meant toinclude the entire electromagnetic spectrum including capacitive orelectric field sensors including so called “displacement currentsensors” as discussed in detail above, and the auto-tune antenna sensoralso discussed above.

Note that the auto-tuned antenna sensor is preferably placed in thevehicle seat, headrest, floor, dashboard, headliner, or airbag modulecover. Seat mounted examples are shown at 140, 141, 142 and 143 and afloor mounted example at 147. In most other manners, the system operatesthe same.

The design of the electronic circuits for a laser system is described insome detail in U.S Pat. No. 5,653,462 cross-referenced above and inparticular FIG. 8 thereof and the corresponding description. In thiscase, a pattern recognition system such as a neural network, orpreferably modular neural network, system is employed and can use thedemodulated signals from the receptors 231 and 232. For some cases, suchas a laser transceiver that may contain a CMOS, CCD, PIN or avalanchediode or other light sensitive devices, a scanner is also required thatcan be either solid state as in the case of some radar systems based ona phased array, an acoustical optical system as is used by some lasersystems, or a mirror or MEMS based reflecting scanner, or otherappropriate technology.

The output of processor 101 of the monitoring system is shown connectedschematically to a general interface 290 which can be the vehicleignition enabling system; the restraint system; the entertainmentsystem; the seat, mirror, suspension or other adjustment systems; or anyother appropriate vehicle system.

4.5 Supporting Electronic Circuits

There are several preferred methods of implementing the vehicle interiormonitoring system of this invention including a microprocessor, anapplication specific integrated circuit system (ASIC), and/or an FPGA orDSP. These systems are represented schematically as either 101 or 601herein. In some systems, both a microprocessor and an ASIC are used. Inother systems, most if not all of the circuitry is combined onto asingle chip (system on a chip). The particular implementation depends onthe quantity to be made and economic considerations. It also depends ontime-to-market considerations where FPGA is frequently the technology ofchoice.

A block diagram illustrating the microprocessor system is shown in FIG.7A, which shows the implementation of the system of FIG. 1. An alternateimplementation of the FIG. 1 system using an ASIC is shown in FIG. 7B.In both cases the target, which may be a rear facing child seat, isshown schematically as 110 and the three transducers as 131, 132, and133. In the embodiment of FIG. 7A, there is a digitizer coupled to thereceivers 131,133 and the processor, and an indicator coupled to theprocessor. In the embodiment of FIG. 7B, there is a memory unitassociated with the ASIC and also an indicator coupled to the ASIC.

The above applications illustrate the wide range of opportunities, whichbecome available if the identity and location of various objects andoccupants, and some of their parts, within the vehicle were known. Oncethe system of this invention is operational, integration with the airbagelectronic sensor and diagnostics system (SDM) is likely since asinterface with SDM is necessary. This sharing of resources will resultin a significant cost saving to the auto manufacturer. For the samereasons, the VIMS can include the side impact sensor and diagnosticsystem.

4.6 Other Occupying Objects

In FIG. 8, a view of the system of FIG. 1 is illustrated with a box 295shown on the front passenger seat in place of a rear facing child seat.The vehicle interior monitoring system is trained to recognize that thisbox 295 is neither a rear facing child seat nor an occupant andtherefore it is treated as an empty seat and the deployment of theairbag is suppressed. The auto-tune antenna based system 140, 141 isparticularly adept at making this distinction particularly if the boxdoes not contain substantial amounts of water. Although a simpleimplementation of the auto-tune antenna system is illustrated, it is ofcourse possible to use multiple antennas located in the seat andelsewhere in the passenger compartment and these antenna systems caneither operate at one or a multiple of different frequencies todiscriminate type, location and relative size of the object beinginvestigated. This training can be accomplished using a neural networkor modular neural network with the commercially available softwaredisclosed above and provided, for example, by NeuralWare of Pittsburghor ISR. The system assesses the probability that the box is a person,however, and if there is even the remotest chance that it is a person,the airbag deployment is not suppressed. The system is thus typicallybiased toward enabling airbag deployment.

5. Other Implementations of the Basic System

5.1 Side Impact

Side impact airbags are now used on some vehicles. Some are quite smallcompared to driver or passenger airbags used for frontal impactprotection. Nevertheless, a small child could be injured if he issleeping with his head against the airbag module when the airbag deploysand a vehicle interior monitoring system is needed to prevent such adeployment. In FIG. 9, a single ultrasonic transducer 330 is shownmounted in a door adjacent airbag system 332 that houses an airbag 336.The airbag system 332 and components of the interior monitoring system,for example transducer 330, are coupled to a processor 101A including acontrol circuit 101B for controlling deployment of the airbag 336 basedon information obtained by ultrasonic transducer 330. This device is notused to identify the object that is adjacent the airbag but merely tomeasure the position of the object. It can also be used to determine thepresence of the object, that is the received waves are indicative of thepresence or absence of an occupant as well as the position of theoccupant or a part thereof. Instead of an ultrasonic transducer, anotherwave-receiving transducer may be used as described in any of the otherembodiments herein, either solely for performing a wave-receivingfunction or for performing both a wave-receiving function and awave-transmitting function.

5.2 Headrest Positioning for Rear Impacts

A rear-of-head detector 334 is also illustrated in FIG. 9. This detector334 is used to determine the distance from the headrest to the rearmostposition of the occupant's head and to therefore control the position ofthe headrest so that it is properly positioned behind the occupant'shead to offer optimum support during a rear impact. Although theheadrest of most vehicles is adjustable, it is rare for an occupant toposition it properly if at all. Each year there are in excess of 400,000whiplash injuries in vehicle impacts approximately 90,000 of which arefrom rear impacts (source: National Highway Traffic Safety Admin.). Aproperly positioned headrest could substantially reduce the frequency ofsuch injuries, which can be accomplished by the head detector of thisinvention. The head detector 334 is shown connected schematically to theheadrest control mechanism and circuitry 340. This mechanism is capableof moving the headrest up and down and, in some cases, rotating it foreand aft.

5.3 Directional Microphone

When the driver of a vehicle is using a cellular phone, the phonemicrophone frequently picks up other noise in the vehicle making itdifficult for the other party to hear what is being said. This noise canbe reduced if a directional microphone is used and directed toward themouth of the driver. This is difficult to do since the position ofdrivers' mouths varies significantly depending on such things as thesize and seating position of the driver By using the vehicle interioridentification and monitoring system of this invention, and throughappropriate pattern recognition techniques, the location of the driver'shead can be determined with sufficient accuracy even with ultrasonics topermit a directional microphone having, for example, a 15 degree coneangle to be aimed at the mouth of the driver resulting in a clearreception of his voice. The use of directional speakers in a similarmanner also improves the telephone system performance. In the extremecase of directionality, the techniques of hypersonic sound can be used.Such a system can also be used to permit effortless conversationsbetween occupants of the front and rear seats Such a system is shown inFIG. 10, which is a system similar to that of FIG. 2 only using threeultrasonic transducers 231, 232 and 233 to determine the location of thedriver's head and control the pointing direction of a microphone 355.Speaker 357 is shown connected schematically to the phone system 359completing the system. Note, although the transducers are illustrated asbeing mounted on the A-pillar and headliner, better performance isachieved when the transducers are mounted spaced apart as discussed inVarga et. al. U.S. Pat. No. RE 37,260, which in incorporated herein byreference.

The transducers 231 and 232 can be placed high in the A-pillar and thethird transducer 233 is placed in the headliner and displacedhorizontally from transducers 231 and 232. The two transducers 231 and232 provide information to permit the determination of the locus of thehead in the vertical direction and the combination of one of transducers231 and 232 in conjunction with transducer 233 is used to determine thehorizontal location of the head. The three transducers are placed highin the vehicle passenger compartment so that the first returned signalis from the head. Temporal filtering is used to eliminate signals thatare reflections from beyond the head and the determination of the headcenter location is then found by the approximate centroid of the headreturned signal. That is, once the location of the return signalcentroid is found from the three received signals from transducers 231,232 and 233, the distance to that point is known for each of thetransducers based on the time it takes the signal to travel from thehead to each transducer. In this manner, by using the three transducers,all of which send and receive, plus an algorithm for finding thecoordinates of the head center, using processor 101, and through the useof known relationships between the location of the mouth and the headcenter, an estimate of the mouth location, and the ear locations, can bedetermined within a circle having a diameter of about five inches (13cm). This is sufficiently accurate for a directional microphone to coverthe mouth while excluding the majority of unwanted noise.

6. Glare Reduction

The headlights of oncoming vehicles frequently make it difficult for thedriver of a vehicle to see the road and safely operate the vehicle. Thisis a significant cause of accidents and much discomfort. The problem isespecially severe during bad weather where rain can cause multiplereflections. Opaque visors are now used to partially solve this problembut they do so by completely blocking the view through a large portionof the window and therefore cannot be used to cover the entirewindshield. Similar problems happen when the sun is setting or risingand the driver is operating the vehicle in the direction of the sun. Thevehicle interior monitoring system of this invention can contribute tothe solution of this problem by determining the position of the driver'seyes. If separate sensors are used to sense the direction of the lightfrom the on-coming vehicle or the sun, and through the use ofelectro-chromic glass, a liquid crystal device, suspended particledevice glass (SPD) or other appropriate technology, a portion of thewindshield, or special visor as discussed below, can be darkened toimpose a filter between the eyes of the driver and the light source.Electro-chromic glass is a material where the color of the glass can bechanged through the application of an electric current. By dividing thewindshield into a controlled grid or matrix of contiguous areas andthrough feeding the current into the windshield from orthogonaldirections, selective portions of the windshield can be darkened asdesired Other systems for selectively imposing a filter between the eyesof an occupant and the light source are currently under development. Oneexample is to place a transparent sun visor type device between thewindshield and the driver to selectively darken portions of the visor asdescribed above for the windshield.

FIG. 11 illustrates how such a system operates for the windshield. Asensor 410 located on vehicle 402 determines the direction of the light412 from the headlights of oncoming vehicle 404. Sensor 410 is comprisedof a lens and a charge-coupled device (CCD), of CMOS light sensing orsimilar device, with appropriate electronic circuitry that determineswhich elements of the CCD are being most brightly illuminated. Analgorithm stored in processor 101 then calculates the direction of thelight from the oncoming headlights based on the information from theCCD, or CMOS device. Transducers 231, 232 and 233 determine the probablelocation of the eyes of the operator 210 of vehicle 402 in a manner suchas described above in conjunction with the determination of the locationof the driver's mouth in the discussion of FIG. 10. In this case,however, the determination of the probable locus of the driver's eyes ismade with an accuracy of a diameter for each eye of about 3 inches (7.5cm). This calculation sometimes will be in error especially forultrasonic occupant sensing systems and provision is made for the driverto make an adjustment to correct for this error as described below.

The windshield 416 of vehicle 402 is made from electro-chromic glass,comprises a liquid crystal, SPD device or similar system, and isselectively darkened at area 418 due to the application of a currentalong perpendicular directions 422 and 424 of windshield 416. Theparticular portion of the windshield to be darkened is determined byprocessor 101. Once the direction of the light from the oncoming vehicleis known and the locations of the driver's eyes are known, it is amatter of simple trigonometry to determine which areas of the windshieldmatrix should be darkened to impose a filter between the headlights andthe driver's eyes. This is accomplished by processor 101. A separatecontrol system, not shown, located on the instrument panel, steeringwheel or at some other convenient location, allows the driver to selectthe amount of darkening accomplished by the system from no darkening tomaximum darkening. In this manner, the driver can select the amount oflight that is filtered to suit his particular physiology. The sensor 410can either be designed to respond to a single light source or tomultiple light sources to be sensed and thus multiple portions of thevehicle windshield to be darkened.

As an alternative to locating the direction of the offending lightsource, a camera looking at the eyes of the driver can determine whenthey are being subjected to glare and then impose a filter, perhaps by atrail and error calculation or through the use of structured lightcreated by a pattern on the windshield, determines where to create thefilter to block the glare.

More efficient systems are now becoming available to permit asubstantial cost reduction as well as higher speed selective darkeningof the windshield for glare control. These systems permit covering theentire windshield which is difficult to achieve with LCDs For example,such systems are made from thin sheets of plastic film, sometimes withan entrapped liquid, and can usually be sandwiched between the twopieces of glass that make up a typical windshield. The development ofconductive plastics permits the addressing and thus the manipulation ofpixels of a transparent film that heretofore was not possible. These newtechnologies will now be discussed.

If the objective is for glare control then the Xerox Gyricon technologyapplied to windows is appropriate. Heretofore this technology has onlybeen used to make e-paper and a modification to the technology isnecessary for it to work for glare control. Gyricon is a thin layer oftransparent plastic full of millions of small black and white or red andwhite beads, like toner particles. The beads are contained in anoil-filled cavity. When voltage is applied, the beads rotate to presenta colored side to the viewer. The advantages of Gyricon are: (1) it iselectrically writeable and erasable; (2) it can be re-used thousands oftimes; (3) it does not require backlighting or refreshing; (4) it isbrighter than today's reflective displays; and, (5) it operates on lowpower. The changes required are to cause the colored spheres to rotate90 degrees rather than 180 degrees and to make half of each spheretransparent so that the display switches from opaque to 50% transparent.

Another technology, SPD light control technology from Research FrontiersInc., has been used to darken entire windows but not as a system fordarkening only a portion of the glass or sun visor to impose a selectivefilter to block the sun or headlights of an oncoming vehicle. Althoughit has been used as a display for laptop computers, it has not been usedas a heads-up display (HUD) replacement technology for automobile ortruck windshields.

Both SPD and Gyricon technologies require that the particles be immersedin a fluid so that the particles can move Since the properties of thefluid will be temperature sensitive, these technologies will varysomewhat in performance over the automotive temperature range. Thepreferred technology, therefore, is plastic electronics although in manyapplications either Gyricon or SPD will also be used in combination withplastic electronics, at least until the technology matures.

The calculations of the location of the driver's eyes using acousticsystems may be in error and therefore provision must be made to correctfor this error. One such system permits the driver to adjust the centerof the darkened portion of the windshield to correct for such errorsthrough a knob, mouse pad, joy stick or other input device, on theinstrument panel, steering wheel, door, armrest or other convenientlocation. Another solution permits the driver to make the adjustment byslightly moving his head. Once a calculation as to the location of thedriver's eyes has been made, that calculation is not changed even thoughthe driver moves his head slightly. It is assumed that the driver willonly move his head to center the darkened portion of the windshield tooptimally filter the light from the oncoming vehicle. The monitoringsystem will detect this initial head motion and make the correctionautomatically for future calculations. Additionally, a camera observingthe driver or other occupant can monitor the reflections of the sun oran oncoming vehicles headlights off of the occupant's head or eyes andautomatically adjust the filter in the windshield or sun visor.

Electro-chromic glass is currently used in rear view mirrors to darkenthe entire mirror in response to the amount of light striking anassociated sensor. This substantially reduces the ability of the driverto see objects coming from behind his vehicle. If one rear-approachingvehicle, for example, has failed to dim his lights, the mirror will bedarkened to respond to the light from that vehicle making it difficultfor the driver to see other vehicles that are also approaching from therear. If the rear view mirror is selectively darkened on only thoseportions that cover the lights from the offending vehicle, the driver isable to see all of the light coming from the rear whether the source isbright or dim. This permits the driver to see all of the approachingvehicles not just the one with bright lights.

Such a system is illustrated in FIG. 1212A and 12B where rear viewmirror 460 is equipped with electrochromic glass, or comprises a liquidcrystal or similar device, having the capability of being selectivelydarkened, e.g., at area 419. Associated with mirror 460 is a lightsensor 462 that determines the direction of light 412 from theheadlights of rear approaching vehicle 405. In the same manner as above,transducers 231, 232 and 233 determine the location of the eyes of thedriver 210. The signals from both sensor systems, 231, 232 plus 233 and462, are combined in processor 101, where a determination is made as towhat portions of the mirror should be darkened, e.g., area 419.Appropriate currents are then sent to the nirror in a manner similar tothe windshield system described above. Again, an alternative solution isto observe a glare reflection on the face of the driver and remove theglare with a filter.

Note, the rearview mirror is also an appropriate place to display iconsof the contents of the blind spot or other areas surrounding the vehicleas disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/851,362 filed May 8,2001 and incorporated herein by reference.

7. Window Displays

In addition to offering the possibility of glare control, plasticelectronics offer the possibility of turning any window into a display.This can be the windshield of an automobile or any window in a vehicleor house or other building, for that matter. A storefront can become achangeable advertising display, for example, and the windows of a housecould be a display where emergency services warn people of a cominghurricane. For automotive and truck use, the windshield can now fulfillall of the functions that previously have required a heads up display(HUD). These include displays of any information that a driver may wantor need including the gages normally on the instrument panel, displayingthe results of a night vision camera and, if an occupant sensor ispresent, an image of an object, or an icon representation, can bedisplayed on the windshield where the driver would see it if it werevisible through the windshield as discussed in more detail elsewhereherein and in the commonly assigned cross referenced patents and patentapplications listed above. In fact, plastic electronics have the abilityto cover most or even the entire windshield area at very low cost andwithout the necessity of an expensive and difficult to mount projectionsystem. In contrast, most HUDs are very limited in windshield coverage.Plastic electronics also provide for a full color display, which isdifficult to provide with a HUD since the combiner in the HUD is usuallytuned to reflect only a single color.

In addition to safety uses, turning one or more windows of a house orvehicle into a display can have “infotainment” and other uses. Forexample, a teenager may wish to display a message on the side windows toa passing vehicle such as “hi, can I have your phone number?” Thepassing vehicle can then display the phone number if the occupant ofthat vehicle wishes. A vehicle or a vehicle operator that isexperiencing problems can display “HELP” or some other appropriatemessage. The occupants of the back seat of a vehicle can use the sidewindow displays to play games or search the Internet, for example.Similarly, a special visor like display based of plastic electronics canbe rotated or pulled down from the ceiling for the same purposes. Thus,in a very cost effective manner, any or all of the windows or sun visorsof the vehicle (or house or building) can now become computer displaysand thus make use of previously unused surfaces for information display.

In another application, a portion of the windshield, such as the lowerleft corner, can be used to display the vehicle and surrounding vehiclesor other objects as seen from above, for example, as described in U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/851,362 filed May 8, 2000 which isincorporated herein by reference in its entirety. This display can usepictures or icons as appropriate. In another case, the condition of theroad such as the presence, or likelihood of black ice can be displayedon the windshield where it would show on the road if the driver couldsee it. Naturally, this would require a source of information that sucha condition exists, however, here the concern is that it can bedisplayed whatever the source of this or any other relevant information.When used in conjunction with a navigation system, directions includingpointing arrows can be displayed to direct the driver to his destinationor to points of interest.

Plastic electronics is in an early stage of development but will have anenormous impact on the windows, sunroofs and sun visors of vehicles. Forexample, researchers at Philips Research Laboratories have made a64×64-pixel liquid crystal display (LCD) in which each pixel iscontrolled by a plastic transistor. Other researchers have used apolymer-dispersed liquid-crystal display (PDLCD) to demonstrate theirpolymeric transistor patterning. A PDLCD is a reflective display that,unlike most LCD technologies, is not based on polarization effects andso can be used to make a flexible display that could be pulled down likea shade, for example. In a PDLCD, light is either scattered bynonaligned molecules in liquid-crystal domains or the LC domains aretransparent because an electrical field aligns the molecules.

Pentacene (5A) and sexithiophene (6T) are currently the two most widelyused organic semiconductors. These are two conjugated molecules whosemeans of assembly in the solid state lead to highly orderly materials,including even the single crystal. The excellent transport properties ofthese molecules may be explained by the high degree of crystallinity ofthe thin films of these two semiconductor components.

The discovery of conducting polymers has become even more significant asthis class of materials has proven to be of great technological promise.Conducting polymers have been put to use in such niche applications aselectromagnetic shielding, antistatic coatings on photographic films,and windows with changeable optical properties. The undoped polymers,which arc semiconducting and sometimes electroluminescent, have led toeven more exciting possibilities, such as transistors, light-emittingdiodes (LEDs), and photodetectors. The quantum efficiency (the ratio ofphotons out to electrons in) of the first polymer LEDs was about 0.01%,but subsequent work quickly raised it to about 1%. Polymer LEDs now haveefficiencies of above about 10%, and they can emit a variety of colors.The upper limit of efficiency was once thought to be about 25% but thislimitation has now been exceeded and improvements are expected tocontinue.

A screen based on PolyLEDs has advantages since it is lightweight andflexible. It can be rolled up or embedded into a windshield or otherwindow. With plastic chips the electronics driving the screen areintegrated into the screen itself. Some applications of the PolyLED areinformation screens of almost unlimited size, for example alongsidemotorways or at train stations. They now work continuously for about50,000 hours, which is more that the life of an automobile. Used as adisplay, PolyLEDs are much thinner than an LCD screen with backlight.

The most important benefit of the PolyLED is the high contrast and thehigh brightness with the result that they can be easily read in bothbright and dark environments, which is important for automotiveapplications. A PolyLED does not have the viewing angle problemassociates with LCDs. The light is transmitted in all directions withthe same intensity. Of particular importance is that PolyLEDs can beproduced in large quantities at a low price. The efficiency of currentplastic electronic devices depends somewhat on their electricalconductivity, which is currently considerably below metals. Withimproved ordering of the polymer chains, however, the conductivity isexpected to eventually exceed that of the best metals. Plasticelectronics can be made using solution based processing methods, such asspincoating, casting, and printing. This fact can potentially reduce thefabrication cost and lead to large area reel-to-reel production. Inparticular, printing methods (particularly screen printing) areespecially desirable since the deposition and patterning steps can becombined in one single step. Screen printing has been widely used incommercial printed circuit boards and was recently adopted by severalresearch groups to print electrodes as well as the active polymer layersfor organic transistors and simple circuits. Inkjets and rubber stampsare alternative printing methods. A full-color polymer LED fabricated byink-jet printing has been demonstrated using a solution ofsemiconducting polymer in a common solvent as the ink.

As reported in Science Observer, November-December, 1998 “PrintingPlastic Transistors” plastic transistors can be made transparent, sothat they could be used in display systems incorporated in anautomobile's windshield. The plastic allows these circuits to be bentalong the curvature of a windshield or around a package. For example,investigators at Philips Research in The Netherlands have developed adisposable identification tag that can be incorporated in the wrappingof a soft package.

8. Glare Reducing Sun Visor

FIG. 21 illustrates the interior of a passenger compartment with a rearview mirror 932, a camera for viewing the eyes of the driver 934 and alarge, generally transparent visor 930. The sun visor 930 is normallylargely transparent and is made from electrochromic glass, suspendedparticle glass or a liquid crystal device or other comparable devices.The camera 934 images the eyes of the driver and looks for a reflectionindicating that glare is impinging on the driver's eyes. The camerasystem may have a source of infrared or other frequency illuminationthat would be momentarily activated to aid in locating the driver'seyes. The driver's eyes can also be located in any means, e.g., bydetermining the location of the driver's head and extrapolating thelocation of the eyes. Once the eyes have been located, the cameramonitors the area around the eyes for an indication of glare. The camerasystem in this case would not know the direction from which the glare isoriginating; it would only know that the glare was present. The glareblocker system can then darken selected portions of the visor to attemptto block the source of glare and would use the observation of the glarearound the eyes of the driver as feedback information. When the glarehas been eliminated, the system maintains the filter perhaps momentarilyreducing it from time to time to see that the source of glare has notstopped.

If the filter is electrochromic glass, a significant time period isrequired to activate the glare filter and therefore a trial and errorsearch for the ideal filter location could be too slow. In this case, anon-recurring pattern can be placed in the visor such that when lightpasses through the visor and illuminates the face of the driver, thelocation where the filter should be placed can be easily determined.That is, the pattern reflection off of the face of the driver wouldindicate the location of the visor through which the light causing theglare was passing. Such a structured light system can also be used forthe SPD and LCD filters but since they act significantly more rapidly itwould serve only to simplify the search algorithm for filter placement.

A second photo sensor can also be used pointing through the windshieldto determine only that glare was present. In this manner when the sourceof glare disappears the filter can be turned off. Naturally, a moresophisticated system as described above for the windshield systemwhereby the direction of the light is determined using a camera typedevice can also be implemented.

The visor 930 is illustrated as substantially covering the frontwindshield in front of the driver. This is possible since it istransparent except where the filter is applied, which would in generalbe a small area. A second visor, not shown, can also be used to coverthe windshield for the passenger side that would also be useful when thelight-causing glare on the driver's eyes enters thought the windshieldin front of the passenger or if a passenger system is also desired. Insome cases, it might even be advantageous to supply a similar visor tocover the side windows but in general standard opaque visors would servefor both the passenger side windshield area and the side windows sincethe driver really in general only needs to look through the windshieldin front of him or her.

A smaller visor can also be used as long as it is provided with apositioning system or method. The visor really only needs to cover theeyes of the driver. This could either be done manually or by electricmotors. If electric motors are used, then the adjustment system wouldfirst have to move the visor so that it covered the driver's eyes andthen provide the filter. This could be annoying if the vehicle isheading into the sun and turning and/or going up and down hills. In anycase, the visor should be movable to cover any portion of the windshieldwhere glare can get through, unlike conventional visors that only coverthe top half of the windshield. The visor also does not need to be closeto the windshield and the closer that it is to the driver the smallerand thus the less expensive it can be.

As with the windshield, the visor of this invention can also serve as adisplay using plastic electronics as described above either with orwithout the SPD or other filter material. Additionally, visor likedisplays can now be placed at many locations in the vehicle for thedisplay of Internet web pages, movies, games etc. Occupants of the rearseat, for example, can pull down such displays from the ceiling, up fromthe front seatbacks or out from the B-pillars or other convenientlocations.

9. Seatbelt Adjustment

Seatbelts are most effective when the upper attachment point to thevehicle is positioned vertically close to the shoulder of the occupantbeing restrained. If the attachment point is too low the occupantexperiences discomfort from the rubbing of the belt on his shoulder. Ifit is too high, the occupant may experience discomfort due to therubbing of the belt against his neck and the occupant will move forwardby a greater amount during a crash, which may result in his headstriking the steering wheel. Short stature people in particularfrequently experience discomfort from an improperly adjusted seatbeltanchorage point. For these reasons, it is desirable to have the upperseatbelt attachment point located slightly above the occupant'sshoulder. To accomplish this for various sized occupants, the locationof the occupant's shoulder must be known which can be accomplished bythe vehicle interior monitoring system described herein. Such a systemis illustrated in FIG. 13 that is a side view of a seatbelt anchorageadjustment system. In this system, a transmitter and receiver(transducer or transceiver) 520 is positioned in a convenient location,such as the headliner, located above and to the outside of theoccupant's shoulder. A narrow beam 521 of energy can be transmitted fromtransducer 520 in a manner such that it irradiates or illuminates theoccupant's shoulder and headrest. An appropriate pattern recognitionsystem as described above is then used to determine the location andposition of the occupant's shoulder. This information is fed to theseatbelt anchorage height adjustment system 528, shown schematically,which moves the attachment point 529 to the optimum vertical location.

10. Resonators

Acoustic or electromagnetic resonators are devices that resonate at apreset frequency when excited at that frequency. If such a device, whichhas been tuned to 40 kHz for example, or some other appropriatefrequency, is subjected to radiation at 40 kHz it will return a signalthat can be stronger than the reflected radiation. If such a device isplaced at a particular point in the passenger compartment of a vehicle,the returned signal can be easily identified as a high magnitude narrowsignal at a particular point in time that is proportional to thedistance from the resonator to the receiver. Since this device can beeasily identified, it provides a particularly effective method ofdetermining the distance to a particular point in the vehicle passengercompartment (i.e., the distance between the location of the resonatorand the detector). If several such resonators are used they can be tunedto slightly different frequencies and therefore separated and identifiedby the circuitry. Using such resonators, the positions of variousobjects in the vehicle can be determined. In FIG. 14, for example, threesuch resonators are placed on the vehicle seat and used to determine thelocation of the front and back of the seat portion 646 and the top ofthe seat back portion 644. As shown in FIG. 14, the seat portion 646 isconnected to the frame 645 of the vehicle. In this case, transducers 231and 232, mounted in the A-pillar 662, are used in conjunction withresonators 641, 642 and 643 to determine the position of the seat.Transducers 231,232 constitute both transmitter means for transmittingenergy signals at the excitation frequencies of the resonators641,642,643 and detector means for detecting the return energy signalsfrom the excited resonators. Processor 101 is coupled to the transducers231,232 to analyze the energy signals received by the detectors andprovide information about the object with which the resonators areassociated, i.e., the position of the seat in this embodiment. Thisinformation is then fed to the seat memory and adjustment system, notshown, eliminating the currently used sensors that are placed typicallybeneath the seat adjacent the seat adjustment motors. In theconventional system, the seat sensors must be wired into the seatadjustment system and are prone to being damaged. By using the vehicleinterior monitoring system alone with inexpensive passive resonators,the conventional seat sensors can be eliminated resulting in a costsaving to the vehicle manufacturer. An efficient reflector, such as aparabolic shaped reflector, or in some cases a corner cube reflector(which can be a multiple cube pattern array), can be used in a similarmanner as the resonator. Similarly, a surface acoustic wave (SAW)device, RFID, variable resistor, inductor or capacitor device and radiofrequency radiation can be used as a resonator or a delay line returninga signal to the interrogator permitting the presence and location of anobject to be obtained as described in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 6.662.642which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.

Resonators or reflectors, of the type described above can be used formaking a variety of position measurements in the vehicle. They can beplaced on an object such as a child seat (see FIG. 2) to permit thedirect detection of its presence and, in some cases, its orientation.These resonators are made to resonate at a particular frequency. If thenumber of resonators increases beyond a reasonable number, dualfrequency resonators can be used. A pair of frequencies is then used toidentify a particular location. Alternately, resonators tuned to aparticular frequency can be used in combination with specialtransmitters, which transmit at the tuned frequency, which are designedto work with a particular resonator or group of resonators. The cost ofthe transducers is sufficiently low to permit special transducers to beused for special purposes. The use of resonators that resonate atdifferent frequencies requires that they be irradiated by radiationcontaining those frequencies. This an be done with a chirp circuit.

An alternate approach is to make use of secondary emission where thefrequency emitted form the device is at a different frequency that theinterrogator. Phosphors, for example, convert ultraviolet to visible anddevices exist that convert electromagnetic waves to ultrasonic waves.Other devices can return a frequency that is a sub-harmonic of theinterrogation frequency. Additionally, an RFID tag can use the incidentRF energy to charge up a capacitor and then radiate energy at adifferent frequency.

Another application for a resonator of the type described is todetermine the location of the seatbelt and therefore determine whetherit is in use. If it is known that the occupants are wearing seatbelts,the airbag deployment parameters can be controlled or adjusted based onthe knowledge of seatbelt use, e.g., the deployment threshold can beincreased since the airbag is not needed in low velocity accidents ifthe occupants are already restrained by seatbelts. Deployment of otheroccupant restraint devices could also be effected based on the knowledgeof seatbelt use. This will reduce the number of deployments for caseswhere the airbag provides little or no improvement in safety over theseatbelt. FIG. 15, for example, shows the placement of a resonator 602on the front surface of the seatbelt where it can be sensed by thetransducers 231 and 232. Such a system can also be used positivelyidentify the presence of a rear facing child seat in the vehicle. Inthis case, a resonator 603 is placed on the forward most portion of thechild seat, or in some other convenient position, as shown in FIG. 1A.As illustrated and discussed in U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/079,065, there are various methods of obtaining distance from aresonator, reflector, RFID or SAW device which include measuring thetime of flight, using phase measurements, correlation analysis andtriangulation.

Other uses for such resonators include placing them on doors and windowsin order to determine whether either is open or closed. In FIG. 16A, forexample, such a resonator 604 is placed on the top of the window and issensed by transducers 611 and 612. In this case, transducers 611 and 612also monitor the space between the edge of the window glass and the topof the window opening. Many vehicles now have systems that permit therapid opening of the window, called “express open”, by a momentary pushof a button. For example, when a vehicle approaches a tollbooth, thedriver needs only touch the window control button and the window opensrapidly. Some automobile manufacturers do not wish to use such systemsfor closing the window, called “express close”, because of the fear thatthe hand of the driver, or of a child leaning forward from the rearseat, or some other object, could get caught between the window andwindow frame. If the space between the edge of the window and the windowframe were monitored with an interior monitoring system, this problemcan be solved. The presence of the resonator or reflector 604 on the topof the window glass also gives a positive indication of where the topsurface is and reflections from below that point can be ignored.

Various design variations of the window monitoring system are possibleand the particular choice will depend on the requirements of the vehiclemanufacturer and the characteristics of the vehicle. Two systems will bebriefly described here.

In the first example shown in FIG. 16, a single transmitter/receiver(transducer) 613 is used in place of and located centrally midwaybetween the transducers 611 and 612 shown in FIG. 16A. A recording ofthe output of transducer 613 is made of the open window without anobject in the space between the window edge and the top of the windowframe. When in operation, the transducer 613 receives the return signalfrom the space it is monitoring and compares that signal with the storedsignal referenced above. This is done by processor 601. If thedifference between the test signal and the stored signal indicates thatthere is a reflecting object in the monitored space, the window isprevented from closing in the express close mode. If the window is partway up, a reflection will be received from the edge of the window glassthat, in most cases, is easily identifiable from the reflection of ahand for example. A simple algorithm based on the intensity, or timing,of the reflection in most cases is sufficient to determine that anobject rather than the window edge is in the monitored space. In othercases, the algorithm is used to identify the window edge and ignore thatreflection and all other reflections that are lower (i.e. later in time)than the window edge. In all cases, the system will default in notpermitting the express close if there is any doubt. The operator canstill close the window by holding the switch in the window closingposition and the window will then close slowly as it now does invehicles without the express close feature.

In the second system, two transducers 611 and 612 are used as shown inFIG. 16A and the processor 601 comprises a neural network. In thisexample the system is trained for all cases where the window is down andat intermediate locations. In operation, the transducers monitor thewindow space and feed the received signals to processor 601. As long asthe signals are similar to one of the signals for which the network wastrained, the express close system is enabled. As before, the default isto suppress the express close.

An alternate technology to the use of resonators is to use an active orpassive radio frequency identification tag (RFID tag) based on either aRF charged electronic circuit or a powerless surface acoustic wavetechnology (SAW). Such a tag can be placed on an object such as a seator child seat and when interrogated it will return a signal usuallycontaining an identification number.

The use of a resonator, RFID or SAW tag, or reflector, to determinewhether the vehicle door is properly shut is illustrated in FIG. 17. Inthis case, the resonator 702 is placed in the B-pillar in such a mannerthat it is shielded by the door, or by a cover or other inhibitingmechanism (not shown) engaged by the door, and blocked or prevented fromresonating when the door is closed. Resonator 702 provides waves 704. Iftransducers such as 231 and 232 in FIG. 3 are used in this system, theclosed-door condition would be determined by the absence of a returnsignal from the B-pillar 702 resonator. This system permits thesubstitution of an inexpensive resonator for a more expensive and lessreliable electrical switch plus wires.

The use of a resonator has been described above. For those cases wherean infrared laser system is used, an optical mirror or reflector wouldreplace the mechanical resonator used with the acoustic system. In theacoustic system, the resonator can be any of a variety of tunedresonating systems including an acoustic cavity or a vibratingmechanical element. As discussed above,a properly designedantenna,corner reflector,or a SAW device fulfills this function forradio frequency waves.

For the purposes herein, the word resonator will frequently be used toinclude any device that returns a signal when excited by a signal sentby another device through the air. Thus,resonator would include aresonating antenna, a reflector, a surface acoustic wave (SAW) device,an RFID tag, an acoustic resonator, or any other device that performssubstantially the same function.

11. Security and Recognition of an Individual

A neural network, or other pattern recognition system, can be trained torecognize certain people as permitted operators of a vehicle. In thiscase,if a non-recognized person attempts to operate the vehicle, thesystem can disable the vehicle and/or sound an alarm as illustrated inFIG. 18. In this figure the sensing transducers are shown as before as231A, 232A and 233A, the alarm system schematically as 708 and the alarmas 705. Since it is unlikely that an unauthorized operator will resemblethe authorized operator, the neural network system can be quite tolerantof differences in appearance of the operator. The system defaults towhere a key must be used in the case that the system doesn't recognizethe driver or the owner wishes to allow another person to operate thevehicle. The transducers 231A, 232A and 233A are sensitive to infraredradiation and the operator is irradiated with infrared waves fromtransducer 231A. This is necessary due to the small size of the featuresthat need to be recognized for high accuracy of recognition. Analternate system uses an infrared laser, which can be 231A in FIG. 18,to irradiate or illuminate the operator and a CCD or CMOS device, whichcan be represented as 232A in FIG. 18, to receive the reflected image.In this case, the recognition of the operator is accomplished using apattern recognition system such as described in Popesco, V. and Vincent,J. M. “Location of Facial Features Using a Boltzmann Machine toImplement Geometric Constraints”, Chapter 14 of Lisboa, P. J. G. andTaylor, M. J. Editors, Techniques and Applications of Neural Networks,Ellis Horwood Publishers, New York, 1993. In the present case a largerCCD element array containing 100,000 or more elements would in manycases be used instead of the 16 by 16 or 256 element CCD array used byPopesco and Vincent.

Once a vehicle interior monitoring system employing a sophisticatedpattern recognition system, such as a neural network or modular neuralnetwork, is in place, it is possible to monitor the motions of thedriver over time and determine if he is falling asleep or has otherwisebecome incapacitated. In such an event, the vehicle can be caused torespond in a number of different ways. One such system is illustrated inFIG. 19 and consists of a monitoring system having transducers 231, 232and 233 plus microprocessor 101, such as shown in FIG. 7A, programmed tocompare the motions of the driver over time and trained to recognizechanges in behavior representative of becoming incapacitated. If thesystem determines that there is a reasonable probability that the driverhas fallen asleep, for example, then it can turn on a warning lightshown here as 805 or send a warning sound. If the driver fails torespond to the warning by pushing a button 806, for example, then thehorn and lights can be operated in a manner to warn other vehicles andthe vehicle brought to a stop. One novel approach, not shown, would beto use the horn as the button 806. For a momentary depression of thehorn, for this case, the horn would not sound. Naturally other responsescan also be programmed.

An even more sophisticated system of monitoring the behavior of thedriver is to track his eye motions using such techniques as aredescribed in: Freidman et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,052 “Eye TrackerCommunication System”; Heyner et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,189 “EyePosition Sensor”; Hutchinson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,836,670 “Eye MovementDetector”; and Hutchinson, U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,069 “Eye MovementDetector With Improved Calibration and Speed”, all of which areincorporated herein by reference in their entirety to the extent thedisclosure of these references is necessary. The detection of theimpaired driver in particular can be best determined by thesetechniques. Also, in a similar manner as described in these patents, themotion of the driver's eyes can be used to control various systems inthe vehicle permitting hands off control of the entertainment system,heating and air conditioning system or all of the other systemsdescribed above. Although some of these systems have been described inthe afore-mentioned patents, none have made use of neural networks forinterpreting the eye movements.

In most of the applications described above, single frequency energy wasused to irradiate various occupying items of the passenger compartment.This was for illustrative purposes only and this invention is notlimited to single frequency irradiation. In many applications, it isuseful to use several discrete frequencies or a band of frequencies. Inthis manner, considerably greater information is received from thereflected irradiation permitting greater discrimination betweendifferent classes of objects. In general each object will have adifferent reflectivity, absorbtivity and transmissivity at eachfrequency. Also, the different resonators placed at different positionsin the passenger compartment can now be tuned to different frequenciesmaking it easier to isolate one resonator from another.

12. Near Field Antenna Sensor

A block diagram of an antenna based near field object detector isillustrated in FIG. 20. The circuit variables are defined as follows:

F=Frequency of operation (Hz).

ω=2*π*F radians/second

α=Phase angle between antenna voltage and antenna current.

A, k1,k2,k3,k4 are scale factors, determined by system design.

Tp1-8 are points on FIG. 20.

Tp1=k1*Sin(ωt)

Tp2=k1*Cos(ωt)Reference voltage to phase detector

Tp3=k2*Sin(ωt) drive voltage to Antenna

Tp4=k3*Cos(ωt+δ) Antenna current

Tp5=k4*Cos(ωt+δ) Voltage representing Antenna current

Tp6=0.5□t)Sin(δ Output of phase detector

Tp7=Absorption signal output

Tp8=Proximity signal output

In a tuned circuit, the voltage and the current are 90 degrees out ofphase with each other at the resonant frequency. The frequency source300 supplies a signal to the phase shifter 302. The phase shifter 302outputs two signals that are out of phase by 90 degrees at frequency F.The drive to the antenna 304 is the signal Tp3. The antenna 304 can beof any suitable type such as dipole, patch, yagi etc. In cases where thesignal Tp1 from the phase shifter 302 has sufficient power, the poweramplifier 306 may be eliminated. The antenna current is at Tp4, which isconverted into a voltage since the phase detector 308 requires a voltagedrive. The output of the phase detector 308 is Tp6, which is filteredvia an amplifier filter 312 and used to drive the varactor tuning diodeD1 (314). Multiple diodes may be used in place of diode D1. The phasedetector 308, amplifier filter 312, varactor diode 314 and current tovoltage converter 316 form a closed loop (tuning loop) servo that keepsthe antenna voltage and current in a 90-degree relationship at frequencyF. The tuning loop maintains a 90-degree phase relationship between theantenna voltage and the antenna current. When an object such as a humancomes near the antenna 304 and attempts to detune it, the phase detector308 senses the phase change and adds or subtracts capacity by changingvoltage to the varactor diode D1 thereby maintaining resonance atfrequency F.

The voltage Tp8 is an indication of the capacity of a nearby object. Anobject that is near the loop and absorbs energy from it will change theamplitude of the signal at Tp5, which is detected and outputted to Tp7.The two signals Tp7 and Tp8 are used to determine the nature of theobject near the antenna.

An object such as a human or animal with a fairly high electricalpermittivity or dielectric constant and a relatively high lossdielectric property (high loss tangent) absorbs a lot of energy. Thiseffect varies with the frequency used for the detection. If a human, whohas a high loss tangent is present in the detection field then thedielectric absorption causes the value of the capacitance of the objectto change with frequency. For a human with high dielectric losses (highloss tangent), the decay with frequency will be more pronounced thanobjects that do not present this high loss tangency. Exploiting thisphenomenon makes it possible to detect the presence of an adult, child,baby, pet or other animal in the detection field.

13. Summary

An older method of antenna tuning used the antenna current and thevoltage across the antenna to supply the inputs to a phase detector. Ina 25 to 50 mw transmitter with a 50 ohm impedance, the current is small,it is therefore preferable to use the method described herein.

Among the inventions disclosed above is an arrangement for obtaining andconveying information about occupancy of a passenger compartment of avehicle which comprises at least one wave-receiving sensor for receivingwaves from the passenger compartment, generating means coupled to thewave-receiving sensor(s) for generating information about the occupancyof the passenger compartment based on the waves received by thewave-receiving sensor(s) and communications means coupled to thegenerating means for transmitting the information about the occupancy ofthe passenger compartment. As such, response personnel can receive theinformation about the occupancy of the passenger compartment and respondappropriately, if necessary There may be several wave-receiving sensorsand they may be, e.g., ultrasonic wave-receiving sensors,electromagnetic wave-receiving sensors, electric, magnetic orelectromagnetic field sensors, antenna near field modification sensingsensors, energy absorption sensors, capacitance sensors, or combinationsthereof. The information about the occupancy of the passengercompartment can include the number of occupants in the passengercompartment, as well as whether each occupant is moving non-reflexivelyand breathing. A transmitter may be provided for transmitting waves intothe passenger compartment such that each wave-receiving sensor receiveswaves transmitted from the transmitter and modified by passing into andat least partially through the passenger compartment. Waves may also befrom natural sources such as the sun, from lights on a vehicle orroadway, or radiation naturally emitted from the occupant or otherobject in the vehicle.

One or more memory units may be coupled to the generating means forstoring the information about the occupancy of the passenger compartmentand to the communications means. The communications means then caninterrogate the memory unit(s) upon a crash of the vehicle to therebyobtain the information about the occupancy of the passenger compartment.In one particularly useful embodiment, means for determining the healthstate of at least one occupant are provided, e.g., a heartbeat sensor, amotion sensor such as a micropower impulse radar sensor for detectingmotion of the at least one occupant and motion sensor for determiningwhether the occupant(s) is/are breathing, and coupled to thecommunications means. The communications means can interrogate thehealth state determining means upon a crash of the vehicle, or someother event or even continuously, to thereby obtain and transmit thehealth state of the occupant(s). The health state determining means canalso comprise a chemical sensor for analyzing the amount of carbondioxide in the passenger compartment or around the at least one occupantor for detecting the presence of blood in the passenger compartment.Movement of the occupant can be determined by monitoring the weightdistribution of the occupant(s), or an analysis of waves from the spaceoccupied by the occupant(s). Each wave-receiving sensor generates asignal representative of the waves received thereby and the generatingmeans may comprise a processor for receiving and analyzing the signalfrom the wave-receiving sensor in order to generate the informationabout the occupancy of the passenger compartment. The processor cancomprise pattern recognition means for classifying an occupant of theseat so that the information about the occupancy of the passengercompartment includes the classification of the occupant. Thewave-receiving sensor may be a micropower impulse radar sensor adaptedto detect motion of an occupant whereby the motion of the occupant orabsence of motion of the occupant is indicative of whether the occupantis breathing. As such, the information about the occupancy of thepassenger compartment generated by the generating means is an indicationof whether the occupant is breathing. Also, the wave-receiving sensormay generate a signal representative of the waves received thereby andthe generating means receive this signal over time and determine whetherany occupants in the passenger compartment are moving. As such, theinformation about the occupancy of the passenger compartment generatedby the generating means includes the number of moving and non-movingoccupants in the passenger compartment.

A related method for obtaining and conveying information about occupancyof a passenger compartment of a vehicle comprises the steps of receivingwaves from the passenger compartment, generating information about theoccupancy of the passenger compartment based on the received waves, andtransmitting the information about the occupancy of the passengercompartment whereby response personnel can receive the information aboutthe occupancy of the passenger compartment Waves may be transmitted intothe passenger compartment whereby the transmitted waves are modified bypassing into and at least partially through the passenger compartmentand then received. The information about the occupancy of the passengercompartment may be stored in at least one memory unit which issubsequently interrogated upon a crash of the vehicle to thereby obtainthe information about the occupancy of the passenger compartment andthereafter the information with or without pictures of the passengercompartment before, during and/or after a crash or other event can besent to a remote location such as an emergency services personnelstation. A signal representative of the received waves can be generatedby sensors and analyzed in order to generate the information about thestate of health of at least one occupant of the passenger compartmentand/or to generate the information about the occupancy of the passengercompartment (i.e., determine non-reflexive movement and/or breathingindicating life). Pattern recognition techniques, e.g., a trained neuralnetwork, can be applied to analyze the signal and thereby recognize andidentify any occupants of the passenger compartment. In this case, theidentification of the occupants of the passenger compartment can beincluded into the information about the occupancy of the passengercompartment.

Other embodiments disclosed above are directed to methods andarrangements for controlling deployment of an airbag. One exemplifyingembodiment of an arrangement for controlling deployment of an airbagfrom an airbag module to protect an occupant in a seat of a vehicle in acrash comprises determining means for determining the position of theoccupant or a part thereof, and control means coupled to the determiningmeans for controlling deployment of the airbag based on the determinedposition of the occupant or part thereof. The determining means maycomprise receiver means, e.g., a wave-receiving transducer such as anelectromagnetic wave receiver (such as a SAW, CCD, CMOS, capacitor plateor antenna) or an ultrasonic transducer, for receiving waves from aspace above a seat portion of the seat and processor means coupled tothe receiver means for generating a signal representative of theposition of the occupant or part thereof based on the waves received bythe receiver means. The determining means can include transmitter meansfor transmitting waves into the space above the seat portion of the seatwhich are receivable by the receiver means The receiver means may bemounted in various positions in the vehicle, including in a door of thevehicle, in which case, the distance between the occupant and the doorwould be determined, i.e., to determine whether the occupant is leaningagainst the door, and possibly adjacent the airbag module if it issituated in the door, or elsewhere in the vehicle. The control means aredesigned to suppress deployment of the airbag, control the time at whichdeployment of the airbag starts, control the rate of gas flow into theairbag, control the rate of gas flow out of the airbag and/or controlthe rate of deployment of the airbag.

Another arrangement for controlling deployment of an airbag comprisesdetermining means for determining whether an occupant is present in theseat, and control means coupled to the determining means for controllingdeployment of the airbag based on whether an occupant is present in theseat, e.g., to suppress deployment if the seat is unoccupied. Thedetermining means may comprise receiver means, e.g., a wave-receivingtransducer such as an ultrasonic transducer, SAW, CCD, CMOS, capacitorplate, capacitance sensor or antenna, for receiving waves from a spaceabove a seat portion of the seat and processor means coupled to thereceiver means for generating a signal representative of the presence orabsence of an occupant in the seat based on the waves received by thereceiver means. The determining means may optionally include transmittermeans for transmitting waves into the space above the seat portion ofthe seat which are receivable by the receiver means. Further, thedetermining means may be designed to determine the position of theoccupant or a part thereof when an occupant is in the seat in whichcase, the control means are arranged to control deployment of sideairbag based on the determined position of the occupant or part thereof.

One method for controlling deployment of an airbag from an airbag modulecomprising the steps of determining the position of the occupant or apart thereof, and controlling deployment of the airbag based on thedetermined position of the occupant or part thereof. The position of theoccupant or part thereof is determined as in the arrangement describedabove.

Another method for controlling deployment of an airbag comprises thesteps of determining whether an occupant is present in the seat, andcontrolling deployment of the airbag based on the presence or absence ofan occupant in the seat. The presence of the occupant, and optionallyposition of the occupant or a part thereof, are determined as in thearrangement described above.

Furthermore, disclosed above are methods for controlling a system in thevehicle based on an occupying item in which at least a portion of thepassenger compartment in which the occupying item is situated isirradiated, radiation from the occupying item are received, e.g., by aplurality of sensors or transducers each arranged at a discretelocation, the received radiation is processed by a processor in order tocreate one or more electronic signals characteristic of the occupyingitem based on the received radiation, each signal containing a patternrepresentative and/or characteristic of the occupying item and eachsignal is then categorized by utilizing pattern recognition techniquesfor recognizing and thus identifying the class of the occupying item. Inthe pattern recognition process, each signal is processed into acategorization thereof based on data corresponding to patterns ofreceived radiation stored within the pattern recognition means andassociated with possible classes of occupying items of the vehicle. Oncethe signal(s) is/are categorized, the operation of the system in thevehicle may be affected based on the categorization of the signal(s),and thus based on the occupying item. If the system in the vehicle is avehicle communication system, then an output representative of thenumber of occupants and/or their health or injury state in the vehiclemay be produced based on the categorization of the signal(s) and thevehicle communication system thus controlled based on such output.Similarly, if the system in the vehicle is a vehicle entertainmentsystem or heating and air conditioning system, then an outputrepresentative of specific seat occupancy may be produced based on thecategorization of the signal(s) and the vehicle entertainment system orheating and air conditioning system thus controlled based on suchoutput. In one embodiment designed to ensure safe operation of thevehicle, the attentiveness of the occupying item is determined from thesignal(s) if the occupying item is an occupant, and in addition toaffecting the system in the vehicle based on the categorization of thesignal, the system in the vehicle is affected based on the determinedattentiveness of the occupant.

One embodiment of the interior monitoring system in accordance with theinvention comprises means for irradiating at least a portion of thepassenger compartment in which an occupying item is situated, receivermeans for receiving radiation from the occupying item, e.g., a pluralityof receivers, each arranged at a discrete location, processor meanscoupled to the receivers for processing the received radiation from eachreceiver in order to create a respective electronic signalcharacteristic of the occupying item based on the received radiation,each signal containing a pattern representative of the occupying item,categorization means coupled to the processor means for categorizing thesignals, and output means coupled to the categorization means foraffecting another system within the vehicle based on the categorizationof the signals characteristic of the occupying item. The categorizationmeans may use a pattern recognition technique for recognizing and thusidentifying the class of the occupying item by processing the signalsinto a categorization thereof based on data corresponding to patterns ofreceived radiation and associated with possible classes of occupyingitems of the vehicle. Each signal may comprise a plurality of data, allof which is compared to the data corresponding to patterns of receivedradiation and associated with possible classes of contents of thevehicle. In one specific embodiment, the system includes locationdetermining means coupled to the processor means for determining thelocation of the occupying item, e.g., based on the received radiationsuch that the output means which are coupled to the location determiningmeans, in addition to affecting the other system based on thecategorization of the signals characteristic of the occupying item,affect the system based on the determined location of the occupyingitem. In another embodiment to determine the presence or absence of anoccupant, the categorization means comprise pattern recognition meansfor recognizing the presence or absence of an occupying item in thepassenger compartment by processing each signal into a categorizationthereof signal based on data corresponding to patterns of receivedradiation and associated with possible occupying items of the vehicleand the absence of such occupying items.

Disclosed above is also an arrangement for controlling audio receptionby at least one occupant of a passenger compartment of the vehicle whichcomprises a monitoring system for determining the position of theoccupant(s) and sound generating means coupled to the monitoring systemfor generating specific sounds. The sound generating means areautomatically adjustable based on the determined position of theoccupant(s) such that the specific sounds are audible to theoccupant(s). The sound generating means may utilize hypersonic sound,e.g., comprise one or more pairs of ultrasonic frequency generators forgenerating ultrasonic waves whereby for each pair, the ultrasonicfrequency generators generate ultrasonic waves which mix to therebycreate new audio frequencies. Each pair of ultrasonic frequencygenerators is controlled independently of the others so that each of theoccupants is able to have different new audio frequencies created.

For noise cancellation purposes, the vehicle can include a system fordetecting the presence and direction of unwanted noise whereby the soundgenerating means are coupled to the unwanted noise presence anddetection system and direct sound to prevent reception of the unwantednoise by the occupant(s).

If the sound generating means comprise speakers, the speakers beingcontrollable based on the determined positions of the occupants suchthat at least one speaker directs sounds toward each occupant.

The monitoring system may be any type of system which is capable ofdetermining the location of the occupant, or more specifically, thelocation of the head or ears of the occupants. For example, themonitoring system may comprise at least one wave-receiving sensor forreceiving waves from the passenger compartment, and a processor coupledto the wave-receiving sensor(s) for determining the position of theoccupant(s) based on the waves received by the wave-receiving sensor(s).The monitoring system can also determine the position of objects otherthan the occupants and control the sound generating means inconsideration of the determined position of the objects.

A method for controlling audio reception by occupants in a vehiclecomprises the steps of determining the position of at least one occupantof the vehicle, providing a sound generator for generating specificsounds and automatically adjusting the sound generator based on thedetermined position of the occupant(s) such that the specific sounds areaudible to the occupant(s). The features of the arrangement describedabove may be used in the method.

Another arrangement for controlling audio reception by occupants of apassenger compartment of the vehicle comprises a monitoring system fordetermining the presence of any occupants and sound generating meanscoupled to the monitoring system for generating specific sounds. Thesound generating means are automatically adjustable based on thedetermined presence of any occupants such that the specific sounds areaudible to any occupants present in the passenger compartment Themonitoring system and sound generating means may be as in thearrangement described above. However, in this case, the sound generatingmeans are controlled based on the determined presence of the occupants.

All of the above-described methods and apparatus may be used inconjunction with one another and in combination with the methods andapparatus for optimizing the driving conditions for the occupants of thevehicle described herein.

Although several preferred embodiments are illustrated and describedabove, there are possible combinations using other geometries, sensors,materials and different dimensions for the components that perform thesame functions. This invention is not limited to the above embodimentsand should be determined by the following claims.

We claim:
 1. A vehicle, comprising: a frame; a vehicular component fixedto said frame; and a system for obtaining information about saidcomponent, said system comprising: at least one resonator or reflectorarranged in association with said component, said at least one resonatorbeing arranged to emit an energy signal upon receipt of a signal at anexcitation frequency; transmitter means for transmitting signals atleast at the excitation frequency of each of said at least oneresonator; energy signal detector means for detecting the energy signalsemitted by said at least one resonator upon receipt of the signal at theexcitation frequency; and a processor coupled to said detector means forobtaining information about said component upon analysis of the energysignals detected by said detector means.
 2. The vehicle of claim 1,wherein the information obtained about said component is a distancebetween each of said at least one resonator and said detector means. 3.The vehicle of claim 1, wherein said component is a seat having a seatbottom portion attached to a floor of the vehicle and a back portionarranged at an angle to said seat bottom portion whereby the informationobtained about the seat is an indication of the position of the seat. 4.The vehicle of claim 1, wherein said at least one resonator is arrangedwithin said component.
 5. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein said at leastone resonator is a SAW device, antenna or RFID tag.
 6. The vehicle ofclaim 1, wherein further comprising at least one additional resonator,each of said resonators being arranged to emit an energy signal uponreceipt of a signal at a different excitation frequency.
 7. The vehicleof claim 6, wherein said component is a seat, a first one of saidresonators being arranged at a front of a seat bottom portion, a secondone of said resonators being arranged at a back of the seat bottomportion and a third one of said resonators being arranged at a top of aseat back portion.
 8. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein said transmittermeans and said detector means are co-located constituting at least onetransducer.
 9. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein said component is aseatbelt whereby the information obtained about the seatbelt is anindication of whether the seatbelt is in use.
 10. The vehicle of claim1, wherein said component is a seatbelt whereby the information obtainedabout the seatbelt is an indication of the position of the seatbelt. 11.The vehicle of claim 1, wherein said component is a window of thevehicle whereby the information obtained about the window is anindication of whether the window is open or closed, or the state ofopenness.
 12. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein said component is a door.13. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein said at least one resonatorcomprises a tuned resonator including an acoustic cavity or a vibratingmechanical element.
 14. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein said at leastone resonator is a SAW device.
 15. The vehicle of claim 1, wherein saidat least one resonator is a tuned resonator including a vibratingmechanical element.
 16. A vehicle, comprising: a frame; a vehicularcomponent fixed to said frame; and a system for obtaining informationabout said component, said system comprising: at least one reflectorarranged in association with said component, said at least one reflectorbeing arranged to reflect an energy signal; transmitter means fortransmitting energy signals in a direction of each of said at least onereflector; energy signal detector means for detecting energy signalsreflected by said at least one reflector; and a processor coupled tosaid detector means for obtaining information about said component uponanalysis of the energy signals detected by said detector means.
 17. Thevehicle of claim 16, wherein said at least one reflector comprises aparabolic-shaped reflector.
 18. The device of claim 16, wherein said atleast one reflector comprises a corner cube reflector or a cube arrayreflector.
 19. The device of claim 16, wherein said at least onereflector comprises an antenna reflector.
 20. The vehicle of claim 16,wherein the information obtained about said component is a distancebetween each of said at least one reflector and said detector means. 21.The vehicle of claim 16, wherein said component is a seat having a seatbottom portion attached to a floor of the vehicle and a back portionarranged at an angle to said seat bottom portion whereby the informationobtained about the seat is an indication of the position of the seat.22. The vehicle of claim 16, wherein said at least one reflector isarranged within said component.
 23. The vehicle of claim 16, whereinsaid transmitter means and said detector means arc co-locatedconstituting at least one transducer.
 24. The vehicle of claim 16,wherein said component is a seatbelt whereby the information obtainedabout the seatbelt is an indication of whether the seatbelt is in use.25. The vehicle of claim 16, wherein said component is a seatbeltwhereby the information obtained about the seatbelt is an indication ofthe position of the seatbelt.
 26. The vehicle of claim 16, wherein saidcomponent is a window of the vehicle whereby the information obtainedabout the window is an indication of whether the window is open orclosed or the state of openness.
 27. The vehicle of claim 16, whereinsaid component is a door.
 28. The vehicle of claim 16, wherein saidtransmitter means comprise an infrared laser system and at least onereflector comprises an optical mirror.
 29. A method for obtaininginformation about a vehicular component of a vehicle, comprising thestep of: arranging at least one resonator in connection with thecomponent, each of the at least one resonator being arranged to emit anenergy signal upon receipt of a signal at an excitation frequency;fixing the component to a frame of the vehicle such that the componentis part of the vehicle; transmitting signals at least at the excitationfrequency of the at least one resonator; detecting the energy signalsemitted by the at least one resonator upon receipt of the signal at theexcitation frequency; and analyzing the detected energy signals toderive information about the component.
 30. The method of claim 29,wherein the detected energy signals are analyzed to determine a distancebetween each of the at least one resonator and a detector device whichdetects the energy signals.
 31. The method of claim 29, wherein the atleast one resonator is arranged in a vehicle seat and the detectedenergy signals are analyzed to determine the position of the seat. 32.The method of claim 29, wherein the at least one resonator is arrangedwithin the component.
 33. The method of claim 29, wherein the componentis a seat having a seat bottom portion attached to a floor of thevehicle and a seat back portion arranged at an angle to the seat bottomportion, the step of arranging the at least one resonator comprising thesteps of arranging a first one of the resonators at a front of the seatbottom portion, arranging a second one of the resonators at a hack ofthe seat bottom portion and arranging a third one of the resonators at atop of the seat back portion.
 34. The method of claim 29, wherein the atleast one resonator is a tuned resonator including an acoustic cavity ora vibrating mechanical element.
 35. The method of claim 29, wherein thecomponent is a seatbelt.
 36. The method of claim 29, wherein thecomponent is a window.
 37. The vehicle of claim 29, wherein thecomponent is a door.
 38. A vehicle, comprising: a vehicular component;and a system for obtaining information about said component, said systemcomprising: a plurality of resonators arranged in association with saidcomponent and at different positions, each of said resonators beingarranged to emit an energy signal at a different frequency upon receiptof a signal at a different excitation frequency; transmitter means fortransmitting signals at least at the excitation frequency of each ofsaid resonators; energy signal detector means for detecting the energysignals emitted by said resonators upon receipt of the respectivetransmitted signal at the excitation frequency; and a processor coupledto said detector means for obtaining information about said componentupon analysis of the energy signals detected by said detector means. 39.A vehicle, comprising: a vehicular component; and a system for obtain noinformation about said component, said system comprising: a plurality ofreflectors arranged in association with said component and at differentpositions, each of said reflectors being arranged to reflect an energysignal; transmitter means for transmitting energy signals in a directionof each of said reflectors; energy signal detector means for detectingenergy signals reflected by said reflectors; and a processor coupled tosaid detector means for obtaining information about said component uponanalysis of the energy signals detected by said detector means.